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Rev. 

J.W.HORSLEY. 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

H.  Lawrence  vVhite 

PRESENTED  BY 

Mrs.  Ruth  Vyhite 


A   FEW  words   to  explain   the  frontispiece  may  be  useful. 
It  is  a  reproduction  of  the  card  of  invitation  issued  when 
the    Prince    of    Wales    opened    the    magnificent    buildings 
reared  on  the  site  of  Clerkenwell  Prison,  and  within  its  old 
boundary  walls.     The   keynote   is  struck   by  the  copy  of 
a  picture  from  Punch  in  1847,  whichoccupies  the  central 
medallion  at  the  top,  and  bears    the  legend,  "The    Pre- 
diction."    A  prison  scowls  and  exclaims  against  the  loss 
of  business  entailed  by  a  neighbouring  school  which,  with 
long  arms  and  a  smiling  face,  gathers  children  in  and  pur- 
poses to  cut  off  the  supplies  of  crime.     It  is  balanced  at  the 
bottom  of  the  card  by  a  view    of  the  Hugh  Myddelton 
School  opened  on  December  13,  1893.     This  date  was  ap- 
propriately chosen  as  being  that  of  the  blowing  down  of 
the  prison  wall  by  Fenians  in   1867,  when  a  large  number 
of  persons  in  the  houses  outside  were  killed  or  wounded. 
No    prisoners    escaped   or    were    hurt    owing   to    Captain 
Codd,  the  Governor — and  subsequently  my  father-in-law — 
having  put  the  exercise  hour  earlier  owing  to  information 
he  had  received,  but  the  intention  was  to  allow  the  Fenian 
prisoners  to  escape  from  the  exercise-yard.      The  gap  in 
the  wall  is  shown  in  the  top  left  hand  of  the  medallion, 
and    it   may  still   be  traced  in  the  wall  of   the  children's 
playground. 

Other  contrasts  are  afforded  by  the  view  of  a  typical 
prison  cell  and  of  a  school  class-room,  and  of  the  spacious 
Boys'  Hall  in  which  the  Prince  presided  over  the  opening 
ceremony  (his  only  previous  visit  to  the  place  having  been 
shortly  after  the  outrage  in  1867),  and  of  the  centre  of 
the  old  prison  with  a  view  down  one  of  its  five-tiered 
galleries  of  cells,  two  of  which,  knocked  into  one,  served  as 
my  office.  The  ground  design  of  the  card  represents  the 
leaves  and  roses  which  are  metaphorically  to  blossom 
on  the  spot  where  previously  "the  wicked"  were  "folden 
together  as  thorns." 

I  may  add  that  the  prison  gate  on  the  cover  of  this 
book  is  that  of  Newgate  Prison,  which  became  attached 
to  Clerkenwell  when  abolished  as  a  separate  prison.  The 
cat  of  nine  tails  on  the  cover  is  of  an  out-of-date  pattern, 
knots  having  been  now  for  a  long  time  disused  by  order. 

I.   \\.    H. 


■  —  / 
Prisons  and  Prisoners 


BY 


REV.   J.   W.    HORSLEY 

AUTHOR   OF   •■  JOTTINGS  FROM  JAIL" 


NEW    YORK 
M.    F.    MANSFIELD   AND   COMPANY 

22    EAST    SIXTEENTH    STREET 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER    I. 

PAGE 

I.  The    Last    Ages    of    Prisons. — 2.  A    Prison 

Calendar. — 3.  The  Last  Prison  Statistics.         i 


CHAPTER   H. 

I.  Is  Crime   Reducible? — 2.  Juvenile   Crime. — 

3.  Family  Crime. — 4.  Alcoholic  Infanticide       18 

CHAPTER   HI. 

I.  Education  and  Crime. — 2.  Not  all  Prisoners 

.\re  Criminals. — 3.  Mouthpieces  ...       46 

CHAPTER   IV. 

I.  Money  Spent  on  Drink. — 2.  Phraseology 
about  Drink. — 3.  Teetotalers  in  Prison. 
— 4.  Proportion  of  Drink-caused  Crime     .       74 

CHAPTER   V. 
I.  Prison  Slang. — 2.  A  Thief's  Autobiography.       95 


919333 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VI. 

PAGE 

I.  Children  in  Prison. — 2.  Not  "Whether"  but 

"Why." — 3.  Sunday  School  Influence         .     126 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Inscriptions  in  Cells 143 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Suicide — Its  Causes  .  164 

CHAPTER   IX. 
Prison  Sermons 191 

CHAPTER  X. 
Ten  Desirable  Reforms        .         .         .         .         .221 

CHAPTER  XI. 

AiMERiCAN  Prisons  .         .         .         .         .         .228 


PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 


CHAPTER    I 

I.  The  Last  Ages  of  Prisons. — 2.  A  Prison  Calendar. 
— 3.  The  Last  Prison  Statistics. 

I.  The  Last  Ages  of  Prisons. 

IN  the  middle  of  the  i8th  century  the 
people  of  England  were  perhaps,  socially, 
at  their  lowest  point.  It  is  not  only  from  an 
ecclesiastical  point  of  view  that  we  might 
describe  the  Georgian  period  as  the  Dark 
Ages:  1 8 19,  when  the  Queen  was  born,  was 
for  many  practical  purposes  still  the  middle 
of  the  1 8th  century  so  far  as  social  progress 
was  concerned.  Nay,  we  may  even  say  the 
same  with  regard  to  1837,  when  she  came 
to  the  throne.  E no-land  at  that  time  was 
unknown  save  to  a  very  few  English  people. 
Not  a  single  railway  had  been  completed. 
There  was  no  Penny  Post,  and  the   majority  of 


2  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

the  country  folk  could  neither  read  nor  write. 
Why  did  no  light  or  leading  come  from  the 
State  ?  Because  the  State  of  that  time  was 
hopelessly  corrupt.  Elections  were  all  carried 
by  open  bribes.  The  Civil  Service  was  full  of 
great  men's  nominees.  Why  was  the  Church, 
then,  not  as  a  leaven  to  the  lump  ?  At  that 
period  pluralism  was  rampant  ;  there  was 
deadness  everywhere  save  i*n  a  few  self-styled 
evangelical  souls  who  confused  worldliness 
with  an  interest  in  the  well-being  of  society. 
Those  two  rivers  of  fresh  thought  and  action 
which  are  represented  by  the  names  of  Pusey, 
Keble,  and  Newman  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
Maurice,  Kingsley,  and  Robertson  on  the 
other,  were  then,  as  movements,  tentative, 
and  as  streams  only  in  their  rill  stage,  separate 
without  any  apparent  chance  of  swelling  to 
their  present  dimensions,  and  with  still  less 
apparent  chance  of  approaching,  and  of  that 
partial  coalescence  of  to-day  whereby  the 
momentum  and  the  fertilising  power  of  each 
are  mightily  increased. 

At  this  time  with  regard  to  crime  and 
criminals  there  was  law,  but  there  was  little 
thought  of  justice,  a  little  less  of  equity,  and 
none  of  mercy  with  regard  to  the  principles  of 
punishment    and    the    right    treatment    of   the 


A   PRISON   CALENDAR  3 

offender.  It  is  hard  for  us  to  believe  that  our 
grandfathers  had  heads  or  hearts  in  the  face  of 
many  things  that  we  find  not  merely  in  the 
writings  of  John  Howard,  but  even  fifty  years 
after  his  death.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  little 
more  than  a  century  ago  John  Howard  had  to 
rouse  the  nation  from  its  voluntary  blindness 
and  pagan  apathy,  and  to  show  the  awlul 
results  of  having  excluded,  or  not  admitted, 
aoencies  for  moral  and  relio-ious  reform  into 
our  prisons,  which  were  then  pest-houses  of 
physical  and  moral  evil.  His  suggestions  were 
many  and  minute.  Few  have  not  been 
adopted  ;  none  were  impracticable  :  and  were 
he  to  re-visit  our  prisons  to-day  he  would  find 
little  to  condemn,  and  hardly  anything  from  a 
religious,  moral,  philanthropic,  or  sanitary 
point  of  view  of  which  he  might  not  say,  "  I 
recommended  that." 

2.  A   Prison  Calendar. 

The  followincr  condensed  Pris(jn  Calendar 
which  I  have  compiled  from  many  sources 
may  be  interesting,  and  tend  to  excite 
thought  and  prevent  error  and  anachnjnisms 
in  writing.  It  will  show  that  public  opinion 
and    .State    action     has    progressed,    and     also 


4  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

that  Prison  Reform  began  late,  and  proceeded 
at  first  with  slow  steps.  Sir  Moses  Montefiore, 
for  example,  might  have  told  us  in  1885  that  he 
remembered  seeing  a  woman  burned  in  the 
Old  Bailey  for  passing  bad  money  (this  was  in 
1789),  and  in  the  next  year  he  might  have 
attended  the  funeral  of  John  Howard.  He 
was  nearly  ten  when  the  Lord  George  Gordon 
Riots  took  place,  whereof  Dickens  has  written 
in  "  Barnaby  Rudge,"  and  their  instigator  died 
in  Newgate  of  gaol  fever  (or  typhus),  which 
has  long  been  extinct  in  gaols.  When  he  had 
nearly  attained  his  majority,  the  penalty  of 
death,  "without  benefit  of  clergy,"  was  attached 
to  over  160  offences.  He  was  nearly  thirty 
before  soldiers  and  sailors  were  not  liable  to  be 
hung  if  travelling  without  passes.  He  was 
over  forty  when  the  police  force  was  instituted, 
and  he  saw  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  our 
system  of  transportation  to  what  in  his  lifetime 
became  the  Australian  Colonies.  He  could 
remember  there  being  18  prisons  in  London, 
and  518  in  the  United  Kingdom. 

Dates. 

1577.  Black  Assize  at  Oxford.  All  in  Court  died 
within  40  hours  from  gaol  fever,  including  the^ 
Judge  and  the  Sheriff. 


A    PRISON    CALENDAR  5 

1596.  Banishment  from  the  Kingdom  provided  in  Act 
as  punishment  for  rogues  and  vagrants. 

16 18.  (leffray  MynshuU's  Prison  Essays. 

1 619.  Transportation  to  America  begun. 
1699.     S.P.C.K.  Committee  on  Prisons. 

1704.  Pope  Clement  XI.  erects  a  separate  prison  in 
Rome  for  the  education  and  reformation  of 
youthful  criminals. 

1 717.  Transportation  regularly  introduced  by  Act  of 
Parliament. 

1728.  Gen.  Oglethorp's  Committee  of  House  of  Com- 
mons to  investigate  the  state  of  the  prisons. 

1 730.  At  Taunton  Lent  Assize  some  hundreds,  including 
the  Judge  and  Sheriff,  died  of  gaol  fever. 

1735.     Will.  Hay's  Parliamentary  Committee  on  Prisons. 

1 75 1.     Prison  Taps  abolished. 

1756.  154  out  of  170  persons  died  in  the  Black  Hole 
at  Calcutta. 

1772.  Prisoners  refusing  to  plead  treated  as  guilty,  and 

pressing  abolished. 

1773.  Act  enabling  Chaplains  to  be  appointed. 

1774.  Act  for  abolishing  gaoler's  fees. 

1775.  Transportation  to  America  ceased. 

1777-  John  Howard's  "State  of  the  Prisons"  published. 

1783.  Last  execution  at  Tyburn,  first  at  Newgate. 

1787.  Transportation  to  Botany  Bay  begun. 

1789.  Last  woman  burned,  after  being  hung  at  the  Old 

Bailey,  for  passing  bad  coin. 

1790.  John  Howard  died. 

1798.     Thames  Marine  Police  establi.shed. 

1803.     An  R.C.  priest,  under  sentence  of  transportation, 

set  free  at  Sydney  to  act  as  R.(^  Chaplain. 
1810.      Komilly's  Act  for  abolishing  hanging  for  stealing 

calico  from  bleaching  grounds. 
1810.      To   this  date    9,000   convicts   had   been   sent    to 

New  South  Wales  ;    po[)ulation  of  the  colony, 

10,500,  of  whom  1,000  were  convicts. 

1814.  Api)ointment  of  Chaplains  made  compulsory. 

1 81 5.  Pillory  abolished  except  for  forgers. 


PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

1816.  Mrs.  Fry  began  work  in  Newgate. 

1817.  Treadmill  first  set  up — at  Brixton. 

18 1 8.  518   prisons   in  the    United   Kingdom,  to  which 

above  100,000  prisoners  were  committed  in  the 
year. 

1820.  Last  Commitment  (of  the  Cato  Street  Con- 
spirators) to  the  Tower.  1,236  sentenced  to 
death  in  England  and  Wales;  107  hung,  of 
whom  only  10  for  murder. 

1825.     First  American  Reformatory  opened  at  New  York. 

1829.  Last  execution  for  forgery.  Metropolitan  Police 
established. 

1 83 1.  Criminals  to  population — Ireland,  i  to  490; 
England,  i  to  740;  Scotland,  i  to  1,130; 
Wales,  I  to  2,320. 

1833.  A  child,  9  years  old,  sentenced  to   be  hung  for 

poking  a  stick  through  a  window  and  stealing 
2^d.,  reprieved  by  "  the  gracious  mercy  of  the 
Sovereign." 

1834.  Silent  System  introduced  at  Coldbath  Fields. 

1835.  Borough     Police    established.      Prisons    Reform 

Act. 

1837.  Pillory  abolished.     P'irst  Reformatory  (Parkhurst) 

opened.  Chaplain  appointed  to  Norfolk  Island 
Convict  Settlement  after  ten  years  of  its 
establishment. 

1838.  158,000    lashes    inflicted    in    one    year   in    New 

South  Wales  and  Van  Diemen's  Land. 

1839.  County  Police  established. 

1840.  Up  to  this  date,  no  diet   but  bread  and  water  in 

St.  Alban's  Gaol. 
1845.     First    International  Prison   Reform  Congress — at 

Frankfort. 
1847.     Parliamentary      Committee      on      Prisons      and 

Punishments. 

1853.  Ticket-of-Ieave  system  established. 

1854.  First  Reformatory  Act.     First  Industrial  Schools 

Act  for  Scotland. 
1857.     Industrial  Schools  Act  for  England. 


THE    LAST    PRISON    STATISTICS  7 

1862.  Discharged  Prisoners'  Aid  Society  Act. 

1863.  Coroner's  Inquest  to  be  held  on  every  prisoner 

who  died  in  prison. 

1865.  Prisons  Act. 

1866.  New  Industrial  Schools  Act. 

1867.  Transportation  to  Australia  ceased  after  451  sent 

this  year. 

1868.  Last  public,  and  first  private,  execution. 
1875.     Transportation  to  Gibraltar  ceased. 

1877.  113  prisons  in  England  and  Wales  (56  in  1897). 

1878.  Horsemonger   Lane  and  36  other  small   prisons 

closed.      All  Local  Prisons  under  Government 
from  April  2nd. 


3.   The   Last  Prison  Statistics. 
Prisoners  Received  in   1896. 


Males  . . . 
Females 


Males. 
On  remand...  ...  ...    20,771 

For  trial       3.97 1 

Summary  conviction  ...   93,454 

Convictions   on  indictments         524 
Convictions  on  court  martial     1,098 


119,818 
Surety  prisoners       ...  ...      1,323 

Debtors        io,934 

Other  prisoners  (Non-pay- 
ment of  maintenance  and 
contempt)  ...  ...     2,127 

134,202 


134, 

202 

45,380 

179. 

582 

Females. 

...   4,695 

...    576 

...  39,008 

61 

44,340  = 

164, 

158 

592  = 

I, 

915 

441  = 

II, 

375 

7  = 

2 

134 

45.380 

179 

582 

8 


PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 


Receptions  of  ■prisoners  in  I  lie  lcir>^est  and  snuillest  prisons. 


Holloway  and  New- 
gate       ...  ...  21,190 

Liverpool...  ...  17,904 

Manchester  ...  16,138 

Pentonville  ...  9,457 

Wakefield  ...  8,197 

Wandsworth  ...  8,183 

Durham    ...  ...  7,087 

Birmingham  ...  6,654 

Newcastle...  ...  6,003 

Preston     ...  ...  5,641 


Leeds 
Stafford     ... 

Devizes    ... 
Hereford 
Shepton  Mallet 
Dorchester 
Bodmin  ... 
Carmarthen 
Bedford 
Brecon 
Ruthin      ... 


5.454 
5.195 

656 
631 
625 
616 

542 
409 

333 
291 

256 


Pentonville,    all    males;   Wandsworth,    i     female    (pre- 
sumably for  execution). 


Disposal  of  uncoireieted  prisoners. 

Discharged...          ...          ...          ...          ...  7,869 

Convicted  summarily         ...          ...          ...  10,261 

To  Industrial  School          118 

Committed  for  trial            ...          ...          ...  4.5 18 

Died             6 

To  Naval  and  Military      1,704 

To  Asylums            ...         ...         ...         ...  6 

24,481 


Disposal  of  prisoners  conunitled  for  trial. 

Acquitted    ... 

Convicted   ... 

Absconded  |        ,  •,         •,■     .      \ 
T^.    ,  \     while  waitm" 

Died  )  *=      ( 

To  Asylums 


1,449 

7,551 

4 

4 

26 

9,034 


THE    LAST    PRISON    STATISTICS 

Disposal  of  convicted  piisoiicrs. 

Released — sentence  ended  ...  ...142,930 

on  payment  of  fine     ...          ...  6,386 

on  finding  sureties       ...          ...  102 

on  pardon  or  remission           ...  199 

on  licence         ...          ...          -■•  1,224 

,,         on  medical  grounds  31 

Removed — to  Reformatories        ...          ...  222 

to  Refuge       ...          ...          ...  2 

to  Asylums     ...          ...          ...  158 

Executed     ...          ...          ...          ...          •••  iQ 

Suicide        ...          ...          ...          •••          •••  4 

Died            121 


i5i>399 

Nature  of  sentences  on  those  received  into  prison. 

Death          33 

Penal  servitude       777 

Eorfeiture  of  ticket  of  leave          ...          ...  19 

Guilty,  but  insane  ...          ...          ...          •■•  23 

Hard  labour  108,056 

^Vithout  hard  labour          40,088 

First  class  misdemeanants            ...          ...  4 

Court  martial          ...          ...          ..•          •••  1,098 


150,098 


Additions  to  imprisonment. 

Flogging      25 

Whipping    ...          ...          ...          ..•          •••  49 

Police  supervision  ...          ...          ...          ...  254 

Licence  revoked     ...          ...          .••          •••  250 


Convicted  prisoners. — Leni^th  of  sentence. 

Death  (commuted)    ...          ...  11 

Penal  servitude  for  life         ...  6 

„                  20  years...  5 

16  years...  2 


all  males 


> 


ID 


PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 


Penal  servitude  foi 

15  years.. 

4  (one  female) 

14  years... 
12  years.. 

I 

8  (one  female) 

10  years.. 

13 

8  years.. 
7  years.. 
6  years.. 
5  years.. 
4  years.. 
3  years.. 

9  (one  female) 
76  (four  females) 
15  (three  females) 
.   203  (five  females) 
55  (two  females) 
380  (thirty-four  females) 

Table  XXXV  of  the  Judicial  Statistics  for 
1896  gives  the  previous  convictions  of  con- 
victed prisoners,  and  is  interesting  therefore  as 
to  the  prevalence  of  recidivism. 

Of  the  85,405  convicted  prisoners  (55,097 
males  and  30,308  females),  21,932  have  been 
convicted  once  previously,  10,962  twice,  7,531 
thrice,  5,613  four  times,  and  4,387  five  times. 
The  ne.xt  column  gives  us  those  whose  pre- 
vious convictions  have  been  from  six  to  ten, 
and  they  number  13,556.  Then  come  those 
more  habitual  offenders  with  from  eleven  to 
twenty  convictions,  and  they  number  i[,5i9, 
and  finally  we  get  the  "incurable"  class  of 
those  who  have  been  convicted  over  twenty 
times,  and  in  some  cases  over  two  hundred  or 
even  over  three  hundred  times.  They  are 
9,906   in   nuniber. 

One  thing  to  be  noted  is  that  whereas  in 
the  class  of  those  with  only  one  previous  con- 


THE    LAST    PRISON    STATISTICS  ii 

viction  the  males  are  16,596  and  the  females 
5,396,  in  the  last  class  the  women  have  caught 
up,  outstripped,  and  practically  doubled  the 
men.  the  numbers  being,  males  3,579,  females 
6,327.  In  the  column  "six  to  ten  times" 
men  are  in  the  ratio  of  8  to  4  females  ;  in 
the  column  "eleven  to  twenty  times"  they 
are  but  6  to  5  ;  and  then  they  sink  to  3  to 
5.  This  phenomenon  is  certainly  due  to  the 
special  characteristics  of  female  intemperance. 
The  Tables  giving  the  degree  of  instruc- 
tion and  the  previous  occupations  of  convicted 
prisoners  are  of  little  use,  as  the  data  arise 
from  insufficient  inquiry  at  admission  and  from 
false  statements  of  the  prisoners  made  to  con- 
ceal their  immorality  or  uselessness.  With 
regard  to  the  latter  point,  7,411  of  those  con- 
victed describe  themselves  as  prostitutes,  but, 
naturally  enough,  we  should  find  many  others 
claiming  to  be  domestic  servants,  charwomen, 
needlewomen,  or  even  "of  no  occupation," 
and  so  enumerated  under  other  heads.  Con- 
sidering the  great  discrepancy  between  the 
nunibers  of  male  and  of  female  servants,  it  is 
not  to  the  credit  of  the  former,  and  it  is  to 
the  credit  of  the  latter,  that  832  male  servants 
and  1,417  female  servants  should  be  convicted. 
With  regard  to  the  former  point,    I   may  (juote 


12  PRISONS    AND    PRISONERS 

from  my  Report  for  1879  to  the  Prison  Com- 
missioners :  "  The  Chaplain  would  point  out 
that  the  new  system  of  books  kept  in  the 
Clerk's  office  do  not  give  any  summaries  or 
totals  of  the  denominational  or  educational 
status  of  prisoners,  which  is  to  be  regretted, 
as  both  these  points  are  interesting  with  regard 
to  crime.  He  would  also  point  out  a  matter 
which  would  cause  any  statistics  on  the  subject 
of  education  to  be  most  misleading.  According 
to  the  rules  and  custom,  it  would  happen  that 
if  one  of  the  Prison  Commissioners  {pei"  im- 
possibile)  were  remanded  on  any  charge,  he 
would  be  asked  on  entrance  if  he  could  read 
and  write,  and  if  he  simply  answered  yes,  he 
would  be  described  in  the  prison  books  and  in 
the  calendar,  if  sent  for  trial,  as  of  imperfect 
education — to  which  he  would  probably  object. 
As  conclusions  are  often  drawn  by  judges  and 
by  the  public  as  to  the  effect  of  education  on 
crime,  it  is  unfortunate  that  this  misleading 
state  of  affairs  should  exist."  I  would  further 
add  that  old  hands  who  could  not  read  at  all 
would  certainly  claim  to  be  able  to  do  so  on 
entrance  for  fear  they  might  not  be  supplied 
with  the  books  or  maoazines  which  contain  a 
good  many  pictures  which  relieve  the  mono- 
tony   of    cell    life.      Nor,    again,    does   a    man 


THE    LAST   PRISON   STATISTICS  13 

"  of  superior  instruction  "  always  proclaim  the 
fact  on  entrance,  feeling  that  as  a  matter  for 
shame  rather  than  brag  under  the  circum- 
stances. The  column  "neither  read  nor  write," 
while  fairly  accurate,  would  be,  for  the  reason 
already  given,  somewhat  under  the  mark.  It 
contains  19.377  males  and  i  1,844  females, 
which  reveals  holes  in  the  educational   net. 

Table  XL  ofives  the  number  received  into 
prison  each  month,  and  this  is  chiefly  inte- 
restin;^  as  showinij  the  truth  of  the  old  canon 
"  Crime  is  Kstival."  The  number  of  admissions 
varies  from  11,692  to  15,046,  the  former  being 
that  for  December,  and  the  latter  that  for  July. 
Only  in  July  is  the  number  over  fifteen  thou- 
sand, and  only  in  June  and  August  is  the 
number  over  fourteen  thousand.  It  is  not  the 
depressing  fogs  of  autumn,  nor  the  physical 
excitement  of  spring,  nor  the  winter's  depression 
of  trade  amongst  many  forms  of  labour,  that 
inclines  people  to  crime.  It  is  the  sun^imer 
always  that  fills  prisons.  Why  ?  Largely  be- 
cause the  days  being  longer  there  is  more  time 
for  drink,  the  davs  bein^"  hotter  there  is  more 
natural  thirst,  and  em[)loynicnt  being  better 
there  is  more  money  for  drink. 

Table    XLl    "ives    the    number  ul   convicts 
under  detention  on   December  31,  1896.     The 


14  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

number  of  those  sentenced  to  penal  servitude 
Is  decreasing,  being  only  3,556,  whereas  the 
daily  average  in  1890  was  4,870,  and  then  the 
downward  tendency  had  been  observable  for 
some  years,  the  figures  for  1887  being  7,186. 
174  of  these  were  under  sentences  of  penal 
servitude  for  life,  95  of  these  being  death 
sentences  commuted.  If  then  we  add  to  these 
95  the  ;^T,S  criminal  lunatics  confined  in  Broad- 
moor as  murderers,  we  get  the  number  of  443 
murderers  in  durance.  The  distinction  between 
the  sentences  of  penal  servitude  for  "life  "  and 
for  "natural  life,"  the  former  giving  hope  of 
release  and  the  latter  little  or  none,  is  now 
abolished.  Those  with  sentences  of  between 
twenty  and  thirty  years  amount  to  97,  those 
between  ten  and  twenty  to  501,  those  with 
seven,  eight,  or  nine  years,  to  4S7  ;  those  with 
five  or  six  years  to  991,  and  those  with  terms 
of  three  years  and  upwards,  but  under  five, 
come  to  1,306.  The  last  twenty  years  have 
seen  not  only  a  great  decrease  in  the  number 
sent  to  penal  servitude,  but  still  more  in  the 
length  of  the  sentences.  In  1896,  yjy  persons 
were  sent  to  penal  servitude,  and  of  these  435 
received  sentences  of  less  than  five  vears  ;  but 
in  1886  there  were  948  sentenced,  and  five 
years  was  the  least  term  any  received. 


THE    LAST   PRISON   STATISTICS  15 

As  juvenile  offenders  are  happily  not  now 
found  in  prison  to  any  appreciable  number, 
we  have  to  pursue  them  into  reformatories  to 
eet  an  idea  of  the  total  amount  of  crime,  and 
even  to  a  certain  extent  into  industrial  schools. 
Into  reformatories  there  were  sent  during  the 
year  902  boys  and  149  girls,  and  as  to  their 
state  of  instruction  the  figures  are  probably 
more  trustworthy  than  those  for  the  prison 
population,  while  also  they  are  more  important 
as  relating  to  those  exclusively  who  have  been 
born  since  educational  legislation  has  made  it 
theoretically  impossible  to  be  illiterate.  Ol  the 
105 1  admissions  we  find  that  143  can  neither 
read  nor  write,  and  743  are  under  the  heading 
"read,  or  read  and  write  imperfectly." 
Turning  then  to  the  corresponding  table 
with  reference  to  the  boys  and  girls  com- 
mitted to  industrial  schools,  who  come  from 
much  the  same  classes  and  conditions,  but  are 
generally  younger,  of  7,256  committed  in 
the  year,  1,933  ^^^  quite  illiterate,  and  3,947 
can  only  read,  or  read  and  write  imperfectly. 
It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  into  in- 
dustrial schools  of  the  ordinary  type  only 
2,699  boys,  and  716  girls  were  committed, 
the  number  7,256  being  arrived  at  by  the 
addition    ot    those    sent   to   truant    indiislrial    or 


i6  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

day  school  industrial  schools.  Out  of  re- 
formatories 1 8  escaped  in  the  year,  and  the 
same  number  out  of  industrial  schools.  In 
reformatories  17  died,  and  in  industrial  schools 

63- 

Into  asylums  as  criminal  lunatics,  145  males 

and  49  females  were  received  in  the  year, 
and  at  the  end  of  the  year  the  numbers  under 
confinement  were  579  males  and  190  females, 
645  out  of  these  769  being  in  our  only  criminal 
lunatic  asylum — Broadmoor.  Of  these  poor 
wretches  no  less  than  497  had  already  been 
confined  for  periods  varying  from  ten  years  to 
above  twenty  years.  Their  offences  were 
chiefly  crimes  of  passion — murder  accounting 
for  338,  attempt  to  murder  for  125,  threatening 
murder  5,  manslaughter  28,  felonious  wounding 
42,  and  malicious  wounding  t^j,  the  only  other 
headings  which  have  any  considerable  number 
under  them  being  arson  30,  and  simple  larceny 
27. 

The  table  as  to  the  exercise  of  the  pre- 
rogative of  mercy  is  chiefly  interesting  for  its 
fifth  column,  which  shows  that  only  92 
prisoners  of  all  kinds  were  released  "  on 
medical  grounds "  during  the  year.  This 
term  includes  persons  whose  lives  would  be 
endangered    by   further    imprisonment,   women 


THE    LAST    PRISON   STATISTICS  17 

near  their  confinement  who,  if  longer  detained, 
would  not  have  been  fit  for  discharge  at  the 
expiration  of  their  sentence,  persons  removed 
to  hospitals  for  infectious  diseases,  &c.  Since 
altogether  they  do  not  number  100,  if  they  all 
remained  and  all  died  the  prison  mortality 
would  not  have  been  advanced  a  point.  This 
should  be  noted,  as  when  the  low  rate  of 
mortality  is  quoted,  the  objection  is  sometimes 
made  that  it  would  be  higher,  only  those  likely 
to  die  are  hustled  out  of  the  prison ! 


CHAPTER   II 

I.   Is  Crime  Reducible? — 2.  Juvenile  Crime. — 3. 
Family  Crime. — 4.  Alcoholic   Infanticide. 

I.   Is  Crime   Reducible? 

THE  social  reformer  must  know  that  crime 
and  criminals  must  always  be  not  only 
interesting  to  him,  but  lie  heavily  upon  his 
heart,  while  the  amount  of  crime  and  the 
number  of  criminals  can  be  reduced  ;  while 
the  principles  of  the  punishment  have  a 
tendency  to  be  forgotten  ;  while  the  causes  of 
crime  are  still  inadequately  sought  out  and 
combated ;  and  while  there  is  still  need  for 
mercy  to  rejoice  over  judgment  in  the  punition 
of  crime,  in  the  details  of  prison  discipline,  and 
in  the  relation  of  society  to  the  prisoner  and 
the  ex-prisoner. 

Is  crime  reducible  ?  A  school  of  Continental 
writers  would  have  us  believe  that  the  statistics 
of  births,  deaths,  marriages,  suicide,  and  crime 

l8 


IS   CRIME   REDUCIBLE?  19 

generally  show  such  a  regularity  as  to  serve 
as  a  formidable  weapon  to  destroy  the  belief  in 
the  reality  of  independent  human  actions,  and 
to  demonstrate  that  the  same  laws  exist  in  the 
moral  as  in  the  physical  world,  and  that  the  aver- 
aoe  amount  of  crime  like  the  average  amount  of 
heat  or  of  rainfall  will  be  the  same  year  after 
year.  "  Collective  determinism  in  demographic 
phenomena "  is  a  pet  theory  of  Morselli,  a 
painstaking-  writer  on  suicide,  and  Herzen  lays 
down  that  only  as  much  as  chance  exists  in  the 
universal  macrocosm  does  freewill  exist  in  the 
microcosm  of  man.  Few,  however,  believe 
that  crime  is  not  reducible,  and  only  a  few 
theorists  that  it  has  not  been  reduced  at  any 
rate  in  our  land  and  in  our  days.  The  daily 
average  in  our  local  prisons  in  1877  was  over 
20,000;  in  1880  only  19,000;  m  1881  only 
18,000;  in  1884  only  17,000;  in  1885  only 
16,000;  in  1889  only  15,000;  in  1890  only 
14,000;     in    1893    only    13,000. 

Or  put  it  in  this  way.  In  1878  our  local 
and  our  convict  prisons  contained  31,701 
prisoners;  in  1885  only  24,000;  in  1893  only 
17,000.  The  number  in  custody  on  March  31, 
1897,  was:  local  prisons,  12,078;  convict 
prisons,  2,958;  total,  15,036.  There  are,  of 
course,    several  arguments    to    prove  that    the 


20  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

decrease  is  more  apparent  than  real,  and  that 
the  number  in  prison  is  no  real  index  to  the 
amount  of  crime  ;  but  I  believe  there  are  more 
arguments  to  show  that  the  decrease  is  real. 
The  operation  of  the  First  Offenders  Act,  and 
the  transfer  of  juvenile  offenders  from  the 
prisons  to  the  reformatories  and  industrial 
schools,  are  the  chief  reasons  to  reduce  the 
value  of  the  figures  that  show  a  reduction 
in  the  prison  population  ;  but  this  may  be  far 
more  than  counter-balanced  by  the  general 
increase  in  the  population  of  the  country.  One 
need  not  be  an  optimist  to  believe  in  a 
present  reduction  of  crime  ;  one  is  likely  to  be 
a  pessimist  in  denying  it.  Let  it  be  granted, 
and  what  are  its  chief  causes  ? 
In  the  first  class  I  should  put — 

1.  Child-saving  work,  whether  carried  on  by 
the  Church,  the  State,  or  private  individuals. 
This  child-saving  work  has  been  the  chief 
glory  of  Queen  Victoria's  reign,  during  which 
the  Acts  (to  quote  only  State  action)  passed 
for  the  protection  and  benefit  of  children 
exceed  in  volume,  and  infinitely  exceed  in 
beneficence,  all  those  of  all  preceding 
reions. 

2.  The  increase  and  success  of  temperance 
v.ork,   and  the    consequent    better    relation    of 


JUVENILE   CRIME  21 

public  opinion  towards  intemperance,  which  is 
by  far  the  chief  cause  of  crime. 

In  the  second  class  I  should  put — 

1.  Education,  and  its  being  made  for  most 
compulsory  and  free. 

2.  The  disinclination  on  the  part  of  adminis- 
trators of  the  law  to  commit  children  and  first 
offenders. 

2.  Juvenile  Crime. 

This  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of  the 
phenomena  of  juvenile  crime,  its  causes, 
its  treatment,  and  whether  this  may  not  be 
increasing,  though  there  is  at  present  a 
decrease  in  adult  crime.  On  this  point  what  I 
write  is  mainly  a  summary  of  the  first  part  of 
the  recent  work  by  the  Rev.  W,  D.  Morrison, 
on  juvenile  offenders,  which  forms  Vol.  III.  of 
the  Criminology  Series  published  by  Fisher 
Unwin.  The  problems  of  habitual  crime,  or  of 
recidivism,  are  formidable  from  every  point  of 
view.  "Why  are  our  Prisons  Failures?"  was 
the  title  of  an  article  I  wrote  over  twenty  years 
ago,  and  the  question  needs  now  to  be  even 
more  loudly  put.  The  proportion  of  habitual 
criminals  to  the  general  prison  population  is 
apparently  steadily  on  the  increase,  and  was 
never   so  high    as  now,  although  that  general 


22  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

population  shows  a  steady  decrease.      It  is  as 
if  we  could  prove  that  drinking  was  decreasing, 
and  yet  dipsomania  increasing,   which,  indeed, 
may  very  well  be  true.      This  increase  of  adult 
incurables  is  to  be  chiefly   noted  with  reference 
to  our  present  subject    from  the  fact  that  the 
man  who  takes  to  crime  as  a  trade  as  a  rule 
begins    young.      Therefore    preventive    efforts 
with  the  young  should  be  promoted  even  more 
than    reformatory    efforts.      Do    both,    but    do 
the    former   most.      Cut  off  the    tributaries    of 
criminality,  and  the  river  of  crime  will  dwindle 
almost    to    dryness.      But    to    deal     with   the 
juvenile  offender  we  must  first  understand  him, 
and  study  the  causes  which  have  produced  his 
abnormal    state.      These    conditions   are    indi- 
vidual   or    social.       The    individual    conditions 
to    be    considered   are    the    sex,    the    age,  the 
bodily  and  mental  characteristics  of  the  urchin. 
The  chief  social   conditions    are   parental  and 
economic,   or,    in    other    words,    heredity    and 
environment. 

Mr.  Morrison  rightly  pleads  that  purely 
punitive  methods  have  been  proved  to  be 
mainly  inefficacious,  if  not  productive  of  further 
evil,  and  that  the  idea  of  reformation  must 
be  allowed  greater  weight  than  the  present 
administrative    idol    of    discipline.       Here    he 


JUVENILE   CRIME  23 

rightly  points  out  that  to  an  amelioration  of  the 
adverse  conditions  of  life  amoncr  laroe  sections 
of  the  juvenile  population  we  must  look  for 
a  mitigation  of  the  problem  of  juvenile  crime. 
Allow  styes  to  be  dirty  and  your  little  pigs 
cannot  be  clean.  The  preaching  of  temperance, 
soberness,  and  chastity,  while  we  do  nothing  to 
remedy  or  to  remove  the  conditions  in  which 
many  of  these  live  to  whom  we  preach,  is  a 
canting  absurdity, 

Mr.  Morrison's  memorable  conclusions  or 
demonstrations  may  be  extracted  as  under  : — 
The  amount  of  crime  committed  is  always 
largely  in  excess  of  crime  recorded  (and  still 
more  of  crime  punished).  J  uvenile  delinquency 
is  increasing  in  nearly  every  country.  This  is 
undoubted  with  regard  to  the  Continent  ;  it 
would  not  be  doubted  in  England  if  to  the 
decreasing  number  found  in  prison  were  added 
those  whipped  or  sent  to  correctional  insti- 
tutions not  being  prisons.  In  England  juvenile 
crime  is  usually  high  where  crime  as  a  whole 
is  high,  and  both  proceed  from  such  conditions 
as  the  concentration  of  population  in  cities, 
which  produces  more  weaklings  and  more 
orphans,  while  migrants  froni  the  country  are 
friendless,  and  lose  the  social  circle  of  the 
villaoe  which  restrains  wrontr-doino-.      In  dense 


24  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

populations  also  the  struggle  for  existence  is 
intensified,  and  cupidity  is  excited  by  the 
exposure  of  goods  and  the  ostentation  of 
wealth.  From  the  moral  point  of  view  the 
decentralisation  of  industries  is  one  of  the 
most  needed  reforms,  and,  comparing  the 
morality  of  town  and  country,  we  may  well  ask 
if  the  increase  of  national  wealth  is  not  beine 
purchased  too  dearly.  A  curious  fact  is  that 
there  is  least  pauperism  where  there  is  most 
crime,  and  vice  versa.  Poverty  is  a  rare  cause 
of  crime  with  young  or  old.  Innate  disposition, 
parental  example,  social  surroundings,  social 
habits,  the  presence  of  temptation  and  oppor- 
tunity, are  the  chief  causes,  and  therefore  the 
most  effective  ways  of  combating  juvenile 
delinquency  consist  in  improving  the  hygienic 
surroundings  of  town  children,  so  that  they  can 
better  fight  the  battle  of  life  in  an  honest  way, 
and  secondly  in  so  improving  the  condition  of 
country  folk  that  they  will  not  be  tempted  to 
rush  to  towns.  Bad  landlords,  whether  of 
village  hovels  or  city  slums,  are  chiefly 
responsible  for  crime.  It  is  the  stye  that 
fouls  the  human  pig  before  the  pig  fouls  the 
stye. 

As  regards  sex,  about  85  per  cent,  of  juvenile 
habitual  offenders  are  boys.     The  accident  of 


JUVENILE   CRIME  25 

sex,  and  the  attributes  of  sex,  make  it  five  or 
six  times  more  likely  that  a  boy  will  become  a 
criminal  than  that  a  girl  shall  thus  develop. 
This  prevails  all  over  the  world,  though  con- 
sequent female  complacency  may  be  diminished 
by  remembering  that  females  always  get  off 
more  lightly  than  males,  that  the  public  and  the 
police  are  less  disposed  to  charge  them,  and  that 
their  home  life  shields  them  from  many  tempta- 
tions and  opportunities  to  which  the  errand 
boys,  van  boys,  and  so  forth  are  exposed. 
Where  the  social  and  economic  conditions  of 
men  and  women  are  more  alike,  as  where  many 
factories  or  mills  exist,  there  the  proportion  of 
female  offenders  is  much  higher.  In  rural 
Surrey  a  tenth,  but  in  Manchester  a  third  of 
the  offences  determined  summarily  are  com- 
mitted by  females.  However,  corrupt io  opiiiiiiE 
pessiina  obtains  as  a  dogma  in  penology. 
Character  is  shown  by  habit  more  than  by  act, 
and  the  habit  of  offending  is  more  deeply 
seated  amongst  offending  girls  than  among 
boys.  Both  from  industrial  schools  and  reforma- 
tories we  find  that  the  number  of  failures  eives 
the  greater  percentage  among  girls  ;  and 
amongst  the  inmates  of  corrective  institutions 
the  percentages  of  incorrigibles  is  higher 
amongst  females. 


26  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

What  is  the  effect  of  age  on  the  juvenile  dis- 
position to  crime  ?  The  first  period  is  that  of 
truancy  and  vagrancy — a  disposition  to  revert 
to  the  nomadic  statje  of  civihsation.  The  next 
step  in  the  evolution  of  an  anti-social  life  is 
rebellion  aoainst  societv's  arransfement  as  to 
property.  The  third  stage,  the  critical  period 
between  boyhood  and  youth,  produces  the 
offender  against  the  person.  As  a  Walworth 
gamin  would  express  it :  "  First  you  hops  the 
wag,  then  you  nicks,  and  then  you  bashes  the 
copper."  Juvenile  crime  steadily  increases  both 
in  amount  and  seriousness  the  nearer  maturity 
is  reached. 

^\\^  physical  condition  of  juvenile  offenders  is 
of  importance.  The  boy  death-rate  of  England 
is  37  per  looo  for  the  ages  five  to  fifteen. 
The  average  amongst  industrial  school  boys  is 
4 '2,  and  an  annual  average  of  47  is  also  dis- 
charged in  a  moribund  condition.  Industrial 
school  crirls  of  the  sanie  acre  have  a  death-rate 
of  8*4,  and  those  discharged  on  account  of 
mortal  or  very  serious  illness  are  3*9  per  1000, 
whereas  the  external  girl  death-rate  is  only  38. 
Plainly,  therefore,  juvenile  offenders  spring 
from,  and  belong  to,  the  unhealthy  class.  This 
conclusion  is  also  arrived  at  by  the  large  pro- 
portion of  orphans  amongst  juvenile  offenders. 


JUVENILE   CRIME  27 

Thirty-nine  in  every  hundred  in  our  industrial 
schools  have  lost  one  or  both  parents.  Their 
stature  also  shows  that  they  are  of  a  decadent 
stock.  In  weight  also  they  are  24lbs.  lighter 
than  their  coevals  outside.  Twenty-hve  per 
cent,  have  some  physical  or  mental  defect,  as 
compared  with  17  per  cent,  in  ordinary  day 
schools.  "  Slums  stunt  and  the  stunted  steal," 
is  an  axiom  we  might  construct. 

What  about  their  oeneral  mental  condition  ? 
Both  gauging  and  comparison  are  dithcult. 
Yet  we  know  that  where  bodily  processes  are 
enfeebled  mental  processes  are  generally  en- 
feebled also,  and  from  imperfect  development 
and  depressed  vitality  we  believe  that  a  third 
of  these  juveniles  are  mentally  below  par. 
Mental  incompetence  or  moral  obliquity  de- 
scribes the  state  of  most  of  their  parents,  and 
these  are  by  nature  incorporated  into  the  mental 
life  of  the  child,  and  show  themselves  in  defects 
of  mind,  of  feeling,  of  will. 

Is  character  due  to  environment,  as  J.  vS.  Mill 
held,  or  to  heredity  influenced  by  environment, 
as  more  modern  thinkers  maintain  ?  In  either 
case  parentage  must  be  studied.  The  propor- 
tion of  illegitimates  in  industrial  schools  is 
slightly  higher  than  the  proportion  in  the 
general     population  ;     but    as     the    death-rate 


28  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

amongst  illegitimates  is  at  least  double  that  of 
the  legitimates,  the  proportionate  percentage 
amongst  juvenile  offenders  is  really  higher  than 
it  seems.  Illegitimacy,  as  well  as  crime,  is 
augmented  by  density  of  population.  Illegiti- 
mates are  therefore  placed  in  surroundings 
likely  to  induce  criminality.  Illegitimacy  is  a 
product  of  penury  and  pauperism  also,  and 
therefore  can  be  diminished  by  improving  wages 
and  lowering  rents.  The  proportion  of  orphans 
is  lower  than  might  be  expected,  largely  owing 
to  the  Poor  Law  and  private  charity  befriending 
orphans  before  evil  has  been  caused  or  developed 
in  them.  Fatherless  children  are  offenders  out 
of  proportion  to  their  numbers  in  the  general 
population.  Father  was  feeble  and  died  ; 
mother  has  to  go  out  to  work  ;  children  are  un- 
supervised. Motherless  children  are  14  per 
cent.,  fatherless  20  per  cent,  in  industrial  schools. 
Widowers  earn  more  than  widows,  and  have 
more  authority.  Absolutely  deserted  children 
are  6  per  cent.  ;  children  of  habitual  criminals 
2  per  cent,  of  the  industrial  school  population. 
Where  both  parents  are  living,  in  a  very  small 
percentage  of  cases  can  their  character  stand 
examination.  Manchester  states  that  68  per 
cent,  of  the  parents  were  disreputable,  and  14 
per  cent,  doubtful. 


FAMILY   CRIME  29 

3.   Family  CRniE. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  well-being- 
of  the  nation  nothino-  deserves  more  consiclera- 
tion  than  the  question  of  family  crime.  An 
individual  may  be  noxious  to  the  community 
as  a  habitual  criminal,  and  as  such  should  be 
subjected  to  far  more  supervision  and  longer 
terms  of  seclusion  for  the  protection  of  society 
than  he  or  she  usually  receives  ;  but  when  a 
whole  family  are  criminal  by  heredity  and 
choice,  then  the  need  of  constant  supervision 
and  stringent  measures  are  the  more  required. 
To  imprison  a  burglar  is  good,  to  break  up  a 
gang  of  burglars  is  better  ;  but  to  dissolve  the 
family  nexus  of  a  generation  of  criminal  instincts 
and  habits  would  be  best,  though  also  most  diffi- 
cult. The  individual  dies,  the  family  does  not. 
Much  of  our  child-saving  work  has  this  as  its 
motive,  and  the  mere  fact  of  a  child  being- 
found  to  frequent  the  company  of  prostitutes,  or 
to  live  in  a  house  used  by  them,  is  enough  for 
the  Industrial  Schools  Amendment  Act  (due  to 
the  mind  and  work  of  Miss  Ellice  Hopkins)  to 
be  put  in  force,  and  for  the  child  to  be  made  a 
child  of  the  State  in  an  industrial  school.  The 
extension  of  such  a  system,  in  spite  of  the 
common  but  short-sighted  objection  of  "  offer. 


30  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

ing  a  premium  to  vicious  parents,"  is  much  to 
be  desired,  and  some  palliative  of  the  danger  to 
the  State  from  the  vicious  family  comes,  as  I 
shall  presently  show,  from  the  excessive  mor- 
tality amongst  the  children  of  the  intemperate  ; 
but  still,  when  we  are  as  wise  as  our  grand- 
mothers, we  may  have  some  more  of  that 
foolishly  nicknamed  "  grandmotherly  "  legisla- 
tion whereby  the  State  will  rescue  more 
children  and  destroy  the  "  rights  "  of  more  use- 
less and  noxious  parents.  The  oft-quoted  case 
of  the  Jukes  family  in  America  is  that  which 
has  been  most  carefully  studied.  A  semi-savage 
backwoodsman  was  a  hard  drinker  and  left  a 
numerous  progeny,  more  or  less  illegitimate  ; 
two  of  his  sons  married  some  of  these  illeeiti- 
mate  daughters,  and  from  these  and  three  other 
daughters  descended  seven  hundred  and  nine 
persons,  of  whom  some  were  honest  and  decent, 
but  of  the  men  not  twenty  were  skilled  work- 
men (and  of  these  ten  learned  their  trade  in 
prison),  one  hundred  and  eighty  were  in  r-eceipt 
of  out-relief,  seventy-six  were  criminals,  and  the 
average  of  prostitution  among  the  marriageable 
women  down  to  the  sixth  generation  was  52*40 
per  cent.  There  is  no  more  instructive  lesson 
in  the  effects  of  heredity — and  of  State  neglect 
perhaps — than  the  book  entitled  "The  Jukes: 


FAMILY   CRIME  31 

a  study  in  Crime,  Pauperism,  Disease,  and 
Heredity,  "  by  R.  L.  Dugdale  ;  Putnams,  New 
York,  1877.  Had  the  earlier  members  of  this 
family  lived  in  England  instead  of  America, 
no  doubt  some  of  them  would  have  been 
hung  in  the  last  century  for  various  offences, 
and  so  the  State  would  have  amputated  for 
the  sake  of  the  body  some  of  the  gangrened 
members,  and  no  doubt  also  our  compara- 
tively modern  system  of  industrial  schools 
and  reformatories  would  have  rescued  and 
transformed  some  of  the  younger  members, 
so  that  we  may  hope  that  such  dangers  from 
such  a  family  are  not  now  to  be  found  on 
either  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Put  yet  in  a 
measure  we  have  the  same  evil  in  our  midst, 
though  no  family  has  been  as  scientifically 
studied  and  its  history  recorded  with  us  as  in 
America.  I  give  the  following  cases  that 
have  come  under  my  notice  to  indicate  what  I 
mean  by  family  crime,  and  how  attention  ought 
to  be  more  directed  towards  it. 

A  girl  aged  ten  is  sent  to  an  industrial  school 
for  theft  ;  she  was  neglected,  and  gained  her 
living  by  hawking  papers  and  matches. 
Her  father  was  a  returned  convict  on  ticket- 
of-leave — a  drunken  and  worthless  fellow; 
her  mother  had  just  come  out  of  prison    and 


32  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

had  been  seventeen  times  before  the  magis- 
trates, and  her  eldest  brother  was  in  prison 
with  sixteen  convictions  against  him  for 
drunkenness,  assault,  and  felony.  Had  she  been 
a  Jukes  of  the  eighteenth  century  she  would  not 
have  been  rescued,  and  would  soon  have  become 
more  evil  and  productive  of  evil.  Were  we 
living  in  the  twentieth  century  perhaps  the  father 
would  not  have  been  allowed  to  return  home  to 
propagate  his  kind,  nor  have  had  his  sentence 
shortened  simply  because  he  found  it  pay  not  to 
be  troublesome  in  prison  ;  and  the  brother's  pun- 
ishments would  have  been  longer  by  the  progres- 
sive system,  and  he  would  have  been  required 
not  to  return  to  his  family  and  associates  on  dis- 
charge, but  to  live,  and  report  himself  periodi- 
cally, in  some  city  at  least  a  hundred  miles 
away. 

A  quiet  and  nice-looking  girl  of  thirteen 
robbed  her  grandfather  and  went  on  a  tour 
alone  with  the  money.  I  wrote  as  to  her  future 
and  received  the  followinof  letter  :  "  Sir — I  am 
not  in  a  position  to  pay  anything  for  the  support 
of  Emma.  .  .  .  Just  a  little  of  the  history  of  her 
father  and  mother.  .  .  .  Though  I  have  kept 
her  for  nine  years  out  of  her  life,  it  was  only  to 
snatch  her  from  the  evil  influence  of  her  un- 
natural parents.      Twenty  years  ago  her  father, 


FAMILY   CRIME  33 

after  a  vast  expense  to  me,  was  convicted,  and 
I  had  to  keep  him  in  a  reformatory  three  years, 
during  which  he  learned  the  trade  of  a  shoe- 
maker, after  which  the  Red  Hill  Society  sent 
him  out  to  Natal,  and  after  he  had  been  there 
three  years  he  sent  me  word  what  a  good  man  he 
was,  and  if  I  would  send  for  him  home  he  would 
prove  how  good  he  had  become,  and  I  sent 
him  ^20,  and  he  had  no  sooner  got  here  than 
he  beoan  his  evil  course  of  robbino-  me,  and  a 
young  girl  about  seventeen  married  him.  After 
a  time  they  parted,  and  she  for  a  time  walked 
the  streets,  and  is  now  living  with  a  man  and 
has  three  or  four  children  by  him.  Emma's 
father  lived  with  a  woman  and  had  two  children 
born  to  him,  but  his  wife's  father  was  so  angry 
about  it  that  he  shot  at  him  and  was  sentenced 
to  five  years'  penal  servitude.  I  then  advised 
him  to  get  away,  which  he  did,  leaving  the 
woman.  After  an  absence  of  two  years  he 
again  turned  up,  with  perhaps  ;^ioo,  and  takes 
his  daughter  away  from  me,  and  again  lives 
with  another  woman,  who  has  a  child  by  him, 
and  this  poor  child  is  half-starved  and  packed 
off  to  me.  ..."  I  cannot  remember  what  I 
did  with  Emma,  but  probably  she  was  one  of 
the  hundred  or  so  that  each  year  I  orot  into 
a  home  as  affordin^r  that  change  of  environment 


34  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

that  I  have  frequently  noticed  to  produce  such 
good  results  as  almost  to  lead  me  to  wonder  if 
heredity  has  much  force  after  all. 

Here  is  a  man  aged  twenty-eight,  who 
already  had  undergone  ten  imprisonments,  in- 
cluding penal  servitude  ;  his  father  had  trained 
him  to  housebreaking  and  always  led  him 
back  to  crime  after  release.  This  father  died 
while  doing  ten  years'  penal  servitude. 

Another  man  said  :  "  Father  had  three  lag- 
gings and  died  in  prison  ;  mother  had  seven 
years." 

A  young  man,  aged  nineteen,  has  eight 
brothers  and  sisters  who  with  their  father  have 
all  been  in  prison,  three  of  them  incarcerated 
now. 

Man,  2  2,  pickpocket,  only  a  fortnight  out 
from  two  months'  hard  labour  ;  his  stepfather  is 
now  in  prison,  and  his  mother  is  also  a  pick- 
pocket who  has  been  in. 

On  one  day  in  July,  1878,  there  were  four 
generations  of  one  family  in  the  same  prison 
(Tothill  Fields) :  an  old  woman  for  being  drunk 
and  disorderly,  her  daughter  and  her  grand- 
daughter in  on  the  same  charge,  and  the 
granddaughter  had  a  baby  girl  at  the  breast. 
What  chance  had  that  child  (a)  of  living, 
(d)    of  being    healthy,   [c)  of   not   becoming  a 


FAMILY   CRIME  35 

drunkard  ?      This   would  have   been    a  family 
worth  studying  after  the  Jukes'  method. 

A  pickpocket,  aged  twenty-one,  with  five 
previous  convictions,  has  two  brothers  doing 
seven  years  and  one  doing  five  for  the  same 
kind  of  offence. 

A  lad  of  eighteen  has  many  charges  of  theft 
brouoht  acrainst  him  ;  his  father  is  doino-  five 
years  for  a  long-firm  swindle  ;  his  mother  has 
been  twice  in  an  asylum  and  was  living  in 
adultery  with  his  uncle,  who  got  eighteen 
months  at  the  same  time  as  his  lather, 

A  man  under  me  in  1882  got  then  fourteen 
years  (had  seven  previously)  for  burglary, 
one  sister  with  him  getting  five  years  and 
another  ten  months  for  burglary  and  possession 
of  stolen  property  ;  the  sister  who  got  five 
years  had  often  been  in  for  drunkenness,  &c.  ; 
was  a  married  woman  but  also  leading'  an  im- 
moral  life  ;  two  other  sisters  were  on  the  streets. 

Man,  aged  thirty-three,  gets  five  years'  penal, 
had  nine  months,  seven  years,  three  months 
before  ;  a  great  drinker  ;  his  mother  drowned 
herself  from  drunkenness  and  upset  at  her  son's 
previous  term  of  penal  servitude;  his  father  had 
four  brothers,  of  whom  one  j)oisoned  himself 
one  hanged  himself,  and  one  got  twenty  years 
for  murderino"  his   wife. 


36  PRISONS   AND   PRISONERS 

Lad  of  seventeen,  with  seven  previous  con- 
victions ;  theft  from  his  mother,  whose  eyes  he 
blacks  ;  father  several  times  in. 

Boy,  aged  ten,  has  a  brother  in  a  reformatory 
and  two  others  who  have  been  in  one. 

A  family  of  three  boys,  all  in  prison  in  the 
same  year  on  separate  charges. 

Observers  on  the  Continent  have  been  much 
and  long  ahead  of  us  in  the  study  of  the  causes 
and  phenomena  of  crime,  and  they  have  not 
neglected  the  point  of  criminal  families. 
Despine,  in  his  "  Psychologie  Naturelle," 
instances  the  case  of  Jean  Chretien,  who  had 
three  sons.  We  are  not  told  about  him  and 
them,  but  of  the  sons  one  had  a  son,  Jean- 
Francois,  a  thief  and  murderer ;  another  had 
two  sons,  Francois,  a  murderer,  and  Martin, 
a  murderer  (whose  son  was  a  thief)  ;  and  the 
third  had  six  children,  Jean-Francois,  thief; 
Claire,  thief;  Marie  Renee,  thief;  Marie  Rose, 
thief ;  Victor,  thief ;  Victorine,  whose  son 
Victor  was  a  murderer  ;  and  Benoit,  of  whom 
nothing  is  recorded.  And  the  Italian  Rossi 
gives  two  typical  examples  :  N.  N.,  con- 
demned for  fraud  and  violence  ;  father 
alcoholic,  convicted  of  fraud  ;  mother  healthy  ; 
six  brothers  died  young  ;  one  brother  a 
monster,    another    born    with    webbed    fingers, 


FAMILY   CRIME  37 

another  a  highwayman,  another  convicted  of 
woundincr  •  two  sisters,  one  insane  and  the 
other  a  prostitute.  R.  S.,  a  thief  and 
camorrista,  convicted  of  wounding-,  &c.  ;  father 
convicted  of  wounding  ;  paternal  uncle  a  thief; 
mother  a  drunkard,  convicted  for  fraud  and 
wounding" ;  maternal  grandfather  insane  ; 
maternal  uncle  camorrista  ;  one  brother  pick- 
pocket ;  another  camorrista,  convicted  of 
fraud  ;  another  a  thief ;  another  a  receiver  ; 
another  camorrista  and  thief;  a  sister  honest 
and  healthy. 

Generally  there  is  little  doubt  of  the 
accuracy  of  the  conclusion  of  the  Rev.  W.  D. 
Morrison  in  his  work  on  Juvenile  Offenders 
(Criminology  Series,  Vol,  III,),  that  "respecting 
the  parental  condition  of  delinquent  children 
who  have  both  parents  alive  and  are  living  at 
home  with  them,  we  are  forced  to  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  in  a  very  small  percentage 
of  cases  is  the  character  of  the  parents  fit  to 
bear  examination.  At  the  very  least  80  per 
cent,  of  them  are  addicted  to  vicious,  if  not 
criminal,  habits,"  It  goes  without  saying  that 
"alcoholism  in  either  of  the  parents  is  one  of 
the  most  fruitful  causes  of  crime  in  the  child  " 
(Havelock  Ellis,  "The  Criminal"),  and  we 
have   also   to   consider  such    conditions   as   the 


38  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

acres  of  fathers  at  the  time  of  the  birth  of 
children,  the  children  of  fathers  below  twenty 
or  over  forty  being  of  more  feeble  constitution, 
and  therefore  more  likely  to  develop  some 
morbid  or  defective  condition  or  tendency  of 
body  or  mind. 

4.  Alcoholic  Infanticide. 

It  is  a  hard  thing  for  a  child-lover  to  rejoice 
over  the  death  of  children,  but  yet  under 
the  circumstances  of  alcoholic  or  criminal 
parentage  it  is  generally  well  for  them  to  be 
removed  from  what  seems  a  certain  evil,  and 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  well-being  of 
the  State  the  excessive  mortality  of  the 
children  of  the  vicious  is  a  matter  for  con- 
gratulation. To  this  subject  I  paid  consider- 
able attention,  and  as  a  generalisation  I 
might  say  that  whereas  in  the  upper  ranks 
of  society  8  per  cent,  die  before  a  year  old,  and 
in  the  lower  ranks  32  per  cent.,  when  one 
investigates  the  family  history  of  those  in 
prison,  about  64  per  cent,  of  infantile  mor- 
tality may  be  assumed.  Some  entries  from 
my  notebooks  will  both  illustrate  this  point  and 
give  alcoholism,  or  the  habit  of  constant  drink- 
ing, as  the  chief  cause  of  this  massacre  of  the 
innocents  : — 


ALCOHOLIC    INFANTICIDE  39 

Woman,  34  ;  four  children  dead  ;  four  years' 
drinking ;  in  for  theft  when  drunk ;  three 
weeks    out    from    ten    months. 

Man,  46  ;  drinks  much  ;  four  of  fourteen 
chikh'en  ahve  ;  earns  £t,  a  week  as  barrow 
maker  ;  now  he  is  on  remand  ;  wife  appHes  for 
parish  relief 

Woman,  47  ;  attempted  suicide  ;  husband  left 
her  eighteen  months  ;  he  a  great  drunkard  and 
immoral  ;  married  at  sixteen  ;  had  twenty-five 
children  (only   once   twins),    six  alive. 

Woman,  t^t^;  drunk,  ?  sane;  heavy  drinking 
for  last  two  years;  husband  also  a  continuous 
drinker  ;  one  of  nine  children  alive  ;  overlaid 
one   when  drunk. 

Woman,  29  ;  husband  and  she  several  times 
in  for  drunken  assaults  on  one  another;  now  in 
for  cutting  his  head  with  a  bottle  of  beer  ;  one 
of  five  children  alive. 

Woman,  t^j  ;  sixteen  and  a  half  years  living 
with  a  married  man  ;  he  left  at  last  "because  he 
couldn't  stand  my  drunkenness";  has  had  three 
months  for  assaulting  him  ;  seven  children,  all 
dead. 

Lad  in  for  drunken  assault ;  father  and 
mother  drink  much  and  are  usually  separated  ; 
he  and  brother  (who  also  drinks)  the  only 
survivors   of  eight   children. 


40  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

Man,  47,  Irish  tailor;  "my  misfortune  to 
have  been  a  drunkard  since  sixteen  "  ;  has  two 
children  alive  out  of  fourteen  ;  awaiting  trial 
for  snatchinor  publican's  watch  as  being 
chucked    out    with    his    wife. 

Woman,  35;  had  eleven  children,  all  but  two 
died  soon  after  birth  ;  married  at  seventeen  to 
husband  atred  eitrhteen. 

Woman  had  buried  fourteen  children,  the 
eldest  being  under  two  years. 

Woman,  44  ;  one  of  twelve  children  alive  ; 
husband  died  of  paralysis  of  brain  from  "a  gay 
life "  ;  she  drinks  hard,  and  has  had  six  and 
twelve  months  before. 

Woman,  31  ;  twelve  years  on  the  streets,  but 
doesn't  go  out  when  her  husband  is  in  work  ; 
hard  drinker ;  twice  in  for  felony  and  eight 
times  for  drink;  nine  children,  "  all  dead,  thank 
God  !  " 

Woman,  t,t,  ;  concubine  ;  nine  of  ten  children 
died  as  infants. 

Man,  42  ;  had  eight  children,  all  died  of 
dropsy    before    two    months    old. 

Man,  54 ;  ex-soldier  and  warder  ;  murders 
wife  ;  who  was  a  habitual  drunkard  ;  nine 
children,    all    stillborn. 

Woman.  23  ;  married  at  fourteen  and  a  half; 
five  children,  all  dead, 


ALCOHOLIC    INFANTICIDE  41 

Woman,  43  ;  drunk  ;  separated  from  her 
husband,  who  is  Hving  with  her  sister ;  one 
child  out  of  eight. 

Woman,  40  ;  in  for  neglect  of  children  ; 
drunk  when  apprehended  ;  been  drinking  since 
her  first  child  ;  three  of  thirteen  alive  ;  the 
baby,   three  months  old,   weighed   2   lbs. 

Woman,  45  ;  two  of  fourteen  children  ;  most 
died  of  consumption  at  four  months. 

Woman,  31  ;  seven  children,  all  dead  ;  none 
lived  more  than  three  months  ;  married  at 
seventeen. 

Woman,  32  ;  had  fourteen  children,  three 
alive  ;  married  at  eighteen  to  husband  aged 
seventeen. 

Man,  36  ;  drunkard  ;  in  for  threatening  his 
wife  ;  seven  of  eight  children  cUed  young. 

Woman,  41  ;  four  of  eighteen  children  alive, 
one  of  these  in  asylum  ;  husband  drunken  ;  at 
marriage  he  was  nineteen,  she  sixteen  ;  tempe- 
rate for  last  two  years,  but  used  to  drink  much. 

Man,  30  ;  in  for  assaulting  his  wife,  who  also 
drinks;  one  of  seven  alive;  married  at  nineteen 
and  eighteen. 

Woman,  58  ;  one  alive  out  of  eleven  ;  only 
one  got  out  of  infancy  ;  she  and  her  husband 
drank  much  ;  he  died  in  a  prize  fight. 

Man,    50  ;  eleven  of  thirteen  children  dead. 


42  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

"  I  am  one  of  the  worst  drunkards  in  the  world  ; 
wife  don't  drink  so  regular,  but  very  hard  when 
she  goes  about  it." 

Man,  53  ;  had  fourteen  pubHc-houses,  wishes 
he  had  never  known  the  trade  ;  wife  died  of 
alcohoHc  phthisis  ;  usually  had  twenty  glasses 
of  beer  a  day  ;  had  nine  children,  eight  dead 
and  one  paralysed. 

Woman,  23  ;  theft  for  drink  ;  pledges  own 
things  for  drink  ;  husband,  a  policeman,  "  tired 
of  talking  to  nie  "  ;    one  of  five  alive. 

And  so  I  might  go  on  for  pages  with  the 
miserable  tale  if  proof  were  needed,  and  terrible 
is  the  outlook,  easy  the  pessimistic  habit  of 
mind,  if  heredity  and  environment  are  alone 
to  be  considered  as  forces  that  mould  the  man. 
What  I  think,  however,  all  who  have  worked 
in  prison  or  for  the  miserable  will  feel  is — 

1.  That  the  undoubted  and  potent  forces  of 
heredity  and  environment  are  never  to  be 
ignored  in  dealing  with  those  who  have  felt 
their  power  as  malign.  This  will  make  mercy 
rejoice  over  judgment,  and  induce  more 
sympathy  and  more  patience  in  the  persevering 
efforts  to  influence  those  under  our  care.  This 
also  should  keep  prison  officials  from  their  too 
common  mental  attitude,  their  class  sin,  of 
drawing    a    line,     or    rather    digging    a    gulf, 


ALCOHOLIC    INFANTICIDE  43 

between  the  respectability  of  themselves  and 
the  criminality  of  their  charges.  Given  the 
same  heredity  and  early  environment,  and  the 
warder  or  chaplain,  nay,  even  the  Prison  Com- 
missioner, mioht  be  worse  than  the  prisoner. 

2.  That  environment  is  not  always  an  aggra- 
vation of  heredity,  but  sometimes  its  antidote. 
We  must  distinguish  between  the  morality  01 
impulse  and  the  morality  of  insight.  The 
morality  of  impulse  takes  the  form  of  inward 
imperatives,  which  impose  themselves  on  the 
mind  of  the  assent  without  his  knowin^r  whence 
they  come  or  why  they  possess  any  authority. 
These  inward  imperatives  are  in  part  instincts 
transmitted  by  heredity.  But  it  is  possible 
also  to  create  these  by  education,  by  rules  of 
life,  by  the  persistent  impacts  of  a  stronger  will 
or  a  higher  nature.  Therefore  we  expect,  and 
we  find,  that  even  prison  or  military  discipline 
has  a  transforming  or,  at  any  rate,  a  reforming 
power.  vStill  more,  love  is  an  emancipator  and 
an  elevator.  The  boardino-  out  of  workhouse 
children,  the  institution  of  a  star  class  in  prison 
for  those  who  are  not  criminal  by  heredity  or 
habit,  are  two  instances  of  the  faith  in  the 
changing   power   of  a  changed   environment. 

3.  That  heredity  and  environment  are  not 
the    only  moulding    conditions.      Both   against 


44  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

some  scientists  and  much  popular  opinion  we 
maintain  the  potency  of  two  other  forces — 
freewill  and  grace.  When  Morselli  asks,  "  How 
is  it  possible  that  theoretical  exhortations  of 
moralists  can  suffice  to  arrest  at  the  last 
moment  the  man  whom  despair  urges  to  turn 
against  himself  the  homicidal  weapon  ? "  we 
simply  answer  from  our  own  observation  (and 
for  ten  years  I  had  to  do  with  an  annual 
average  of  three  hundred  who  had  attempted 
suicide),  "You  doubt  if  it  is  possible;  we  know 
it  is  an  actual  fact."  If  Morselli,  a  typical 
Continental  scientist,  an  authority  on  the 
statistics  of  suicide,  claims  that  "to  science 
alone  will  belong  in  future  the  functions  of 
regulator  and  moderator  of  public  morals," 
we  smile  at  the  audacity  of  his  partial  know- 
ledge. In  this  connection,  at  any  rate,  a 
science  that  knows  nothing  of  the  scientia 
scientiaruni,  the  knowledge  of  God,  and  from 
God  of  what  is  in  man,  and  of  what  God  does 
for  man  by  man,  is  no  science  at  all.  The 
materialist  has  his  function,  and  world  in  which 
he  may  achieve  some  victories  ;  but  it  is  not 
the  prison -world,  nor  has  he  any  gospel  for 
those  who  for  him,  but  not  for  our  Master, 
remain  the  outcast  and  the  lost.  He  knows 
but  the  crucible  and  the  scalpel  ;  we  know  the 


ALCOHOLIC    INFANTICIDE  45 

Cradle  of  Bethlehem,  the  Cross  of  Calvary,  the 
empty  Tomb,  and  the  abiding  presence  of 
Emmanuel.  It  is  in  the  prison  and  the 
penitentiary  that  materialism  would  do  most 
harm.  It  is  from  the  prison  and  the  peniten- 
tiary that  the  strongest  refutations  will  come 
of  the  materialist  belief  in  heredity  and  environ- 
ment as  irresistible  or  as  the  only  considerable 
forces. 


CHAPTER   III 

T.  Education   and  Crime. — 2.  Not  all    Prisoners   are 
Criminals. — 3.  Mouthpieces. 

I.   Education  and  Crime. 

UNDER  the  head  of  environment  we 
come  naturally  to  think  of  education 
and  its  influence,  especially  upon  the  young  ; 
and  nothing  is  more  frequently  debated  than 
the  effect  of  education  upon  crime,  nothing 
concerning  which  the  opinions  of  a  prison 
official  are  more  commonly  sought.  "  Once 
a  gaol  chaplain  always  a  gaol  chaplain  " 
seems  to  be  an  adage  that  may  be  con- 
structed with  a  reverence  for  fact.  Firstly, 
because  prison  work  must  be  so  interesting, 
and  even  fascinating,  to  every  one  who  is  not 
the  square  man  in  the  round  hole,  that  even 
if  a  chaplain  retires  and  descends  to  become 
an    ordinary    vicar,    surrounded    by    people    of 

the  ordinary    type    of   respectability,    "  faultily 

46 


EDUCATION    AND   CRIME  47 

faultless"  in  their  own  estimation,  and  "icily 
regular "  in  the  monotony  of  their  painfully 
proper  existences,  his  mind  is  constantly 
travelling  back  to  the  kaleidoscopic  variety, 
the  lurid  shadows,  and  the  barred  lights  of  the 
prison  stage  on  which  the  drama  of  humanity 
was  acted  without  masks  by  actors  who  were 
always  intense.  Philistines  pall  upon  him  after 
he  has  once  noted  with  mingled  amusement, 
irritation,  and  despair,  their  petty  peculiarities 
and  complacent  individualism,  and  he  seeks  a 
corrective  solace  in  the  remembrance  of  his 
Bohemian  friends  of  yore.  Secondly,  the 
adage  is  true,  because  the  stores  of  experience 
that  he  perforce  has  gained  are  constantly 
being  drawn  upon  by  friends  or  strangers 
who  recoonise  that  one  who  has  seen  not 
only  the  dark,  but  also  the  unveiled  side  ot 
humanity,  will  the  better  be  able  to  advise 
under  circumstances  that  are  to  the  inquirer 
strange,  unique,  and  appalling.  If,  therefore, 
one  wanted  to  forget  the  prison  and  its  lessons, 
other  people  would  prevent  oblivion.  Amongst 
the  abstract  questions  which  are  put  with 
direct  or  indirect  relation  to  penology,  one  of 
the  most  common  is  as  to  the  relations  of 
education  and  crime.  An  interviewer  for  a 
newspaper    or    magazine    (who     lives    on     the 


48  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

fricasseed  brains  of  others),  a  youth  who  wants 
to  open  a  debate  in  a  Mutual  Improvement 
Society,  one  who  wants  to  maintain  that 
School  Boards  and  crime  cannot  co-exist,  and 
another  who  believes  that  to  impart  more  than 
the  three  R's  will  but  increase  a  fourth,  i.e., 
Roguery — all  these  naturally  desire  an  answer 
to  this  question. 

Now  definition  of  terms  is  commonly  either 
the  preventive,  or  the  limitation,  or  the  end 
of  controversy  ;  therefore  first  we  must  define 
"  crime  "  and  "  education."  When  you  use  the 
word  "crime,"  do  you  mean  {a)  the  criminal 
class,  or  {b)  all  who  are  found  in  prison  ?  And 
(<f)  if  you  distinguish  between  the  instinctive 
and  habitual  criminals,  and  those  who  are  com- 
paratively by  accident,  or,  at  any  rate,  inci- 
dentally, in  prison,  are  you  also  mindful  that 
offences  must  be  classified  according  to  their 
origin,  e.g.,  from  intemperance,  or  from  passion, 
or  from  greed  ?  A  different  answer  would  be 
given  to  your  question  if  one  or  other  of  these 
three  chief  causes  of  criminality,  or  of  actual 
crime,   was  chiefly  or  solely  in  view. 

As  regards  the  first  class,  I  should  certainly 
say  that  education,  and  especially  secular  in- 
struction, which  is  by  no  means  its  equivalent, 
has     very    little     affected    or     decreased     the 


EDUCATION   AND   CRIME  49 

criminal  class,  save  as  regards  the  compara- 
tively recent  efforts  made  to  cut  off  the  suppHes 
of  crime  by  committing  to  industrial  schools  or  to 
reformatories,  or  by  the  taking  into  voluntary 
homes,  children  who,  by  the  faults  of  their 
parents,  are  probable  or  even  incipient  crimi- 
nals. In  other  words,  education  is  a  preven- 
tive of,  and  so  one  of  the  causes  of  the  decrease 
in,  crime,  only  in  the  case  of  potential  criminals. 
But  from  various  causes  neither  Church  nor 
State  sufficiently  extends  as  yet  its  fatherhood 
and  its  motherhood  to  those  children,  the  rights 
of  whose  parents  to  wrong  them  should  be 
more  efficaciously,  universally,  and  perma- 
nendy  destroyed.  The  more  degraded  is  an 
alley  or  court,  the  worse  is  the  school  atten- 
dance of  its  children. 

If,  secondly,  the  answer  is  to  be  based  on 
the  whole  prison  population,  then,  as  I  have 
already  said,  there  is  evidence  of  a  large  de- 
crease, and  no  doubt  the  spread  of  education  is 
one  of  its  causes. 

When,  thirdly,  one  distinguishes  classes  of 
prisoners  according  to  the  motives  or  causes 
which  produced  their  present  seclusion,  one 
notes  that  intemperance,  which  by  a  moderate 
estimate  fills,  directly  or  indirectly,  three-fourths 
of  oLir  prison   cells,  is  not  abolished  by  educa- 


50  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

tion.  "  Eddication's  the  panacea,"  I  heard  a 
Hcensed  "  victualler  "  exclaim  in  a  discussion  in 
Prince's  Hall  ;  but  his  statement  was  as  wrong 
as  his  pronunciation. 

Brain-workers  provide  the  most  hopeless 
cases  of  dipsomania.  Increased  brain-power — 
more  brain  -  work  ;  more  brain  -  exhaustion — 
more  nervous  desire  for  a  stimulant — more 
rapid  succumbing  to  the  alcohol  habit — these 
are  the  stages  that  can  be  noted  everywhere 
among  those  who  have  had  more  "  schooling  " 
than  their  fathers.  Australia  consumes  more 
alcohol  per  head  than  any  nation.  In  Australia 
primary  education  is  more  universal  than  in 
England,  and  yet  there  criminals  have  increased 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  population.  Of 
much  crime,  of  many  forms  of  crimes,  it  is 
irrefragably  true  that  crime  is  condensed 
alcohol  ;  and  it  is  certainly  not  true  that  the 
absolutely  or  comparatively  illiterate  alone 
comprise  those  who  swell  these  categories. 
Again,  w^iile  covetousness  is  a  factor  of 
crime,  the  tools  education  places  in  the  hands 
makes  crimes  of  greed  more  possible,  and 
possible  at  an  earlier  age  than  in  past  genera- 
tions. This  week  I  ofet  the  Church  of  Enoland 
Waifs  and  Stravs  Societv  to  take  under  its 
care  a  child  of  ten  who  had  stolen,  filled  up. 


EDUCATION   AND   CRIME  51 

and  cashed,  a  postal  order  that  it  might  buy 
more  lollipops.  Increased  knowledge,  especially 
when  not  adequately  accompanied  by  moral 
and  religious  education,  will  create  new  tastes, 
desires,  and  ambitions,  that  make  for  evil  as 
well  as  for  good.  Let  instruction  abound,  let 
education  in  its  fullest  sense  more  abound  ;  but 
let  us  be  aware  of  the  increased  power  for  evil 
as  well  as  for  good  that  they  produce,  and  at 
any  rate  let  us  not  imagine  that  education  and 
crime  cannot  co-exist.  Crime  is  varied,  not 
abolished,  not  even  most  effectually  decreased, 
by  the  sharpening  of  wits.  Bill  Sikes  is  not, 
maybe,  the  brute  to-day  that  once  he  was ; 
but  as  Sikes  &  Co.  he  has  not  decreased 
commercial  immorality,  nor  as  W.  Sikes,  Esq., 
director  or  promoter  of  many  companies,  has 
he  ceased  to  be  noxious. 

And  next  we  must  define  what  we  mean  by 
education.  To  educe  from  the  totalitv  of  the 
powers  of  the  child,  the  adolescent,  and  the 
adult,  all  of  which  he,  as  an  individual,  is  capable, 
to  provide  all  means  for  this  purpose,  and  con- 
tinuously to  have  these  means  applied  to  hini 
and  sought  by  him,  is  one  thing.  To  instruct, 
that  is,  to  put  things  into  him,  and  usually  into 
one  part  only  of  his  I)cing,  is  (juite  another. 
Secular  and   utilitarian   instruction  will,   with  a 


52  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

force-pump,  fill  the  mind  with  facts,  often 
angular  and  ponderous,  bruising  and  over- 
weighting the  recipient.  Education  will  gently 
and  harmoniously  develop  all  the  powers  of 
body,  mind,  and  spirit.  Even  in  the  domain 
of  intellect  alone  Gradgrind,  the  instructor,  is  a 
typical  failure,  and  Socrates,  the  educator,  a 
typical  success.  Therefore,  if  I  am  required, 
as  I  am  constantly  and  by  many,  to  believe 
that  salvation  (whether  social  or  other)  comes 
from  Standard  VI.,  and  that  secular  instruction 
will  effect  much  by  itself  for  the  reduction  of 
immorality  and  crime,  I  respectfully  and  firmly 
decline  such  faith. 

But  taking  for  the  nonce  the  word  "education  " 
in  its  popular,  though  insufficient  and  mislead- 
ing, sense,  how  far  does  prison  experience  show 
it  to  be  efiectual  .'^  Here  aofain  we  must  dis- 
tinguish  according  to  sex,  for  certainly  it  is 
rare  to  find  educated  women,  and  not  rare  to 
find  educated  men,  in  prison.  According  to 
the  Judicial  Statistics  for  1896,  the  last  avail- 
able, there  were  in  our  local  prisons  52  men  and 
2  women  "of  superior  instruction,"  and  2,806 
men  and  307  women  of  the  "  read  and  write 
well  "  class.  From  the  prison  point  of  view 
it  is  certain  that  education,  and  better  home 
environment,    is   more   efiective   in   the  gentler 


EDUCATION   AND   CRIME  53 

than   ill   the   rougher    sex    in    diniinishing    the 
tendency  to  crime  as  a  whole.      But  when  we 
come   to    the   vast    majority   of   prisoners,   and 
find  them  included  in   the  two  groups   "  of  im- 
perfect   education"    and    "illiterate" — 114,46c 
in  the  former,  and   31,221    in  the  latter — what 
conclusions  may  we  draw  ?      First,  let  me  warn 
people  to  draw   none  of   importance  from  the 
numbers  in  the  "imperfect"  class.      It  contains 
many  who  should  be  in   the  higher,  and  many 
who  should  be  in  the  lower,  class.      Stand,  as  I 
have  done  hundreds  of  times,  by  the  recording- 
warder  in  the  entrance  hall  as  he  questions  the 
prisoners  who  descend  from  the  .  Black  Maria 
or     Queen's     Bus.       Amongst     the     questions 
addressed  to  each  is  "  Can  you  read  or  write  ?  " 
The  first  says,  perhaps,  "  Yes,  I  am  a  doctor." 
He  will  go  down  in  the  "  superior  "  class.    The 
next  says,  "  Oh,  yes,  well."      He  is  enrolled  in 
the  second  class.      The  next  says,  as  most  do, 
simply    "  Yes,"   and   though  he  may  be  really 
well  educated,  a  simple  "  Yes  "  consigns  him  to 
the  tribe  of  the   "  imperfectly  educated."      But 
also   there   is   the  illiterate  who,   being   an   old 
hand,  knows  that   it  is  worth  while  to  have  a 
library  book   in    your   cell    for   the   sake   of  its 
illustrations  even  if  you  cannot  read.      1  here- 
fore  he  says  Yes,  and   is  enrolled  as  only  im- 


54  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

perfect.  But  now  for  the  illiterate  class,  and 
the  evidence  it  affords  as  to  the  success  with 
which  the  scholastic  net  is  cast.  There  were 
31,221  prisoners  described  as  illiterate  in  1896, 
and  when  one  notes  what  I  have  already 
pointed  out  that  others  evade  inclusion  in  this 
class,  and  when  one  finds  that  the  decade  from 
twenty  to  thirty-  years  is  always  the  worst  for 
crime,  and  that  none  of  this  aw  now  date  their 
birth  from  a  free  School- Boardic  era,  then  one 
sees  that  education  is  only  in  name  compulsory 
and  universal,  and  that,  therefore,  we  are  not 
yet  adequately  enabled  to  say  how  far  it  may 
be  a  cause,  or  a  chief  cause,  in  any  reduction  of 
crime.  Several  times  from  Clerkenwell  I  sent 
lists  of  children  of  school-aoe  whom  I  found 
unable  to  read  or  write  to  the  officials  of  the 
London  School  Board  ;  but  they  were  always 
able  to  give  a  grood  reason  (generally  the 
migratory  habits  of  parents)  why  these  were 
illiterate  and  on  the  streets  when  the  nation 
was  paying  heavily  for  their  being  in  school. 
And  afterwards,  as  a  local  manager  of  Board 
Schools,  from  weekly  attention  to  the  absentee 
book,  from  interviewing  at  "  B.  meetings  "  or 
pastorally  the  irregular  children  and  their 
parents,  I  discovered  that  red  tape,  and  the  de- 
lays of  routine,  and   the  absence  of  a  special 


EDUCATION   AND   CRIME  55 

tribunal  (or  special  days  at  an  existing  one) 
for  the  correction  of  careless  and  selfish 
parents,  are  other  great  reasons  why  educa- 
tion does  not  prevail,  in  either  sense  of  the 
word,  with  many.  If  a  baby  has  to  be  minded, 
an  errand  done,  beer  to  be  fetched,  or  a  visit 
paid,  for  one  hour  only  in  a  day,  many  mothers 
are  bound  to  select  just  that  hour  which  will 
hinder  the  child's  being  present,  or  at  any  rate 
punctual,  at  school.  As  a  manager,  after  seeing 
children,  parents,  and  teachers,  I  may  recom- 
mend that  a  sumnions  should  be  taken  out 
against  the  parent  of  a  constant  absentee. 
That  is  my  opinion,  but  the  attendance  officer 
has  his  also,  and  perhaps  takes  time  to  arrive  at 
it  ;  so  has  his  superintendent  ;  so  has  the 
divisional  member  ;  and  by  the  time  the  case 
gets  through  all  these  sieves  (if  ever  it  does) 
and  reaches  the  magistrate,  perhaps  the  parents 
have  moved,  or  the  child  has  been  rather  more 
regular  lately,  and  so  the  magistrate  (even  if 
without  prejudices  or  crochets  with  regard  to 
the  schooling  of  the  poor)  dismisses  the  case. 
Result :  discouraged  teachers,  encouraged  bad 
parents,  and  a  large  crop  of  children  who  really 
know  nothing,  and  have  none  of  the  intel- 
lectual tools  in  their  hands  that  increased  com- 
petition makes  of  increased  necessity  when  they 


56  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

can  snap  their  fingers  at  school  laws  because  they 
have  reached  the  mature  age  of  fourteen.  And, 
be  it  remembered,  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
securing  attendance  are  greatest  just  in  the  very 
class  which  most  needs  discipline  and  instruc- 
tion because  most  of  it  suffers  from  the  forces 
of  evil  heredity  and  environment.  That  is,  the 
scholastic  machinery  breaks  clown  just  where 
its  application  is  of  highest  necessity. 

On  one  point,  however,  I  think  prison  ex- 
perience would  speak  with  no  uncertain  sound, 
and  that  is  that  a  merely  secular  instruction, 
apart  from  any  recognition  of  God  in  school, 
and  from  any  imparting  of  religious  knowledge 
as  part  of  the  work  of  the  school,  must  have, 
and  does  have,  a  bad  effect.  Of  course  in  all 
cases  theoretically,  and  in  some  cases  actually, 
the  loss  is  not  so  much  felt  when  the  relioious 
atmosphere  of  the  home  and  the  regular  atten- 
dance at  Sunday  school  and  children's  services 
work  together  for  good.  But  just  where  there 
is  a  great  probability  of  a  vicious  or  criminal 
future,  and  therefore  the  greater  need  for  those 
supplements  to  school  defects,  there  most  are 
parents  apathetic  or  even  antagonistic.  When 
there  has  been  at  any  time  in  the  early  life  of  a 
prisoner  religious  education,  or  even  religious 
instruction,   there   is   always   something    to    re- 


NOT   ALL    PRISONERS    ARE    CRIMINALS     57 

cover  and  something  on  which  to  work.  The 
man  by  the  wayside  is  half  dead,  but  he  is  not 
a  corpse  into  which  life  has  not  yet  been 
breathed.  A  creed  has  left  a  backbone,  even 
though  now  there  is  curvature  of  the  spiritual 
spine.  There  is  a  memory,  like  a  spark  to  be 
fanned  into  light  and  warmth.  A  catechism 
has  always  left  a  conception  of  duty.  Con- 
viction of  sin  is  a  more  readily  obtainable  state 
when  there  has  been  the  doomatic  inculcation 
of  virtue. 

2.   Not  all  Prlsoners  are  Criminals. 

People  invariably  are  interested  in  a  sort 
of  way  in  prisons  and  prisoners.  Senti- 
mental, capricious,  uninformed,  and  unpro- 
ductive very  often  is  that  same  interest  ;  but 
yet  there  it  is,  to  be  directed  into  a  deeper 
channel  perhaps  for  the  benelit  of  prison 
reform  (where  in  detail  rather  than  principle 
still  needed),  and  still  more  for  the  wise  and 
adequate  shepherding  of  ex-prisoners.  Towards 
this  end  I  should  like  to  be  allowed  to  remove 
from  people's  mind  certain  erroneous  ideas,  that 
I  find  to  be  common,  concernino-  their  brethren 
who  have  been  found  out  and  are  in  process 
of  being  punished  by  the  State.  I  am  afraid 
prison  chaplains,   in  their  love  for  their  work, 


58  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

get  into  the  way  of  dividing  society  into  two 
classes — that  which  has  been  found  out  and 
that  which  has  not,  and  to  prefer  the  former. 
Prisoners,  to  some  of  us,  are  far  more  interest- 
ing than  the  average  respectable  person  outside, 
"faultily  faultless,  icily  regular,"  at  any  rate  in 
their  own  opinions  and  by  their  own  profession  ; 
and  we  (I  cannot  help  writing  as  a  prison  chap- 
lain, though  now  out  of  prison  for  as  many  years 
as  I  was  in  it)  even  find  them  more  honest,  as 
letting  us  know  for  good  or  for  evil  what  they 
really  are  and  what  they  mean,  while  the 
external  and  unconvicted  world  agrees  with 
Talleyrand  that  language  was  given  to  conceal 
thouofht. 

I.  The  first  erroneous  idea  concernino- 
prisoners  is  that  they  form,  or  belong  to,  a 
distinct  class  of  the  community,  easily  to  be 
distinguished  and  justly  to  be  branded  as  such. 
This  is  a  orreat  mistake.  There  is  a  criminal 
class,  criminal  by  origin  and  criminal  in 
instincts,  in  which  are  many  who  may  fairly 
be  described  as  the  victims  of  heredity  and  of 
evil  environment  before  their  own  choice  could 
be  exercised.  Some  members  of  this  class  are 
found  in  the  prison,  some  remain  usually  with- 
out. Many  are  the  bullies,  the  parasites  on 
evil,  the  loafers,  who  are  of  the  criminal  class, 


NOT    ALL    PRISONERS   ARE   CRIMINALS      59 

unproductive  and  noxious,  who  yet  manage  to 
escape  the  prison  in  which  they  should  be  for 
the  protection  and  the  well-being  of  society. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  perhaps  half  of  those 
who  are  in  prison  do  not  at  all  belong  to  this 
class,  either  by  heredity  or  by  habitual  choice. 
From  yielding  to  a  sudden  or  occasional  temp- 
tation one  commits  a  crime,  is  detected,  and  is 
punished,  but  remains  rather  an  offender  than 
a  criminal.  Very  few  of  the  criminal  class 
when  set  free  really  reform,  although  they  may 
abstain  from  wrono-doin^r  from  fear  of  further 
or  increased  punishment  ;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  very  many  are  those  who  really  take  the 
lesson  to  themselves  and  benefit  by  their 
punishment  and  seclusion.  No  one  could  be 
the  better  for  belon^ino-  to  the  criminal  class, 
but  many  are  undoubtedly  the  better  as  in- 
dividuals and  as  members  of  society  for  having 
been  in  prison.  But  the  ignorant  world  judges 
without  consideration,  and  tars  with  the  same 
brush  all  who  have  been  in  prison. 

2.  The  common  idea,  cynically  expressed  by 
self-constituted  judges,  is  that  all  prisoners 
as.sert  their  innocence,  and  there  are  various 
humorous  stories  about  visitors  to  prison, 
after  hearing  the  tales  from  the  cells,  coming 
to  the  conclusion  that  judges  and  juries,   and 


6o  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

especially  prosecutors  and  police,  were  the  only 
guilty  persons  to  be  discovered.  But  the  cry 
"  I  have  sinned  "  is  by  no  means  unheard  in 
prison.  Sometimes  I  have  in  my  daily  rounds 
noted  how  many  asserted  their  innocence  and 
how  many  admitted  (though  they  might  put 
forward  excuses  for)  their  guilt.  I  found  it 
was  about  six  of  one  and  half  a  dozen  of  the 
other,  although  my  friends  were  nearly  all 
unconvicted  prisoners  on  remand  or  awaiting 
trial,  and  therefore  more  likely  to  protest  inno- 
cence while  as  yet  the  issue  of  the  trial  was  in 
doubt.  Prisoners  would  often  admit  their  guilt 
to  me  in  confidence,  and  even  give  all  details 
of  how  the  offence  came  about  and  was  com- 
mitted, although  before  the  magistrate  they 
were  pleading  "  Not  guilty."  And  not  in- 
frequently I  was  asked  to  settle  the  case  of 
conscience — "  May  I  plead  *  Not  guilty  '  and 
take  my  chance  when  I  know  I  have  done  it  ?  " 
"Yes,"  I  used  to  answer;  "your  position  is 
different  from  that  of  a  witness  sworn  to  the 
truth,  and  it  is  known  and  admitted  that  the 
plea  of  '  Not  guilty  '  may  simply  mean  '  I  want 
to  be  tried  and  desire  the  evidence  to  be  pro- 
duced.' It  is  a  technical  legal  phrase  that 
does  not  necessarily  mean  a  denial  of  having 
committed  an  offence."     At  the  same   time   it 


NOT   ALL    PRISONERS   ARE   CRIMINALS      6i 

might  well  be  considered  if  the  question  "  How 
say  you — Guilty  or  Not  guilty?"  need  be  put 
in  this  way,  any  more  than  juries  should  only 
be  allowed  by  English  law  to  return  verdicts  of 
Guilty  or  Not  Guilty.  In  Scotland  the  middle 
verdict  of  "  Not  proven  "  is  allowed,  and  so 
might  be  the  middle  plea  "  1  wish  to  be  tried." 
But,  anyhow,  that  all  prisoners  declare  them- 
selves innocent  is  an  absurd  imagination. 
There  is  a  certain  proportion  who  have, 
through  remorse  or  penitence,  given  themselves 
up  to  justice.  A  man  came  in  to  see  me  once 
and  told  me  his  tale  of  guilt  and  of  the  fear- 
ful expectation  of  detection.  Having  gone 
thoroughly  into  the  question  1  advised  im- 
mediate surrender,  and  accompanied  him  to 
the  police-station,  as  this,  he  said,  would  make 
it  easier  for  him  to  confess.  When  I  saw  him 
afterwards  in  prison  he  by  no  means  regretted 
the  step.  Another  man  who  had  been  con- 
vinced of  sin  in  listening  to  a  mission  sermon 
by  the  Rev.  W.  H.  Aitken  surrendered  himself 
to  the  police  in  consequence,  and  told  me  how 
thereby  a  degree  of  happiness  had  come  to  him 
that  was  a  blessed  change  from  the  misery  and 
fear  of  his  former  state.  Another  man  under 
me  had  lor  many  years  li\'(Hl  in  luist  London 
unknown   after  having  committed  a  murder  in 


62  PRISONS   AND   PRISONERS 

Essex.  No  one  had  any  suspicion  at  the  time 
as  to  who  was  the  murderer,  and  when  at  last 
this  poHce-station  confession  (unHke  most  of 
such  self-accusations,  whose  father  is  a  penny- 
a-lining  account  of  a  tragedy  and  whose  mother 
is  beer)  proved  to  be  true,  it  was  by  no  means 
easy  to  find  any  surviving  witnesses  to  bear 
out  the  man's  tale.  He  told  me  that  the  weioht 
of  the  ugly  secret  increased  with  years  and  at 
last  became  intolerable,  although  it  was  in- 
creasingly evident  each  year  that  detection  was 
not  to  be  feared.  His  sentence,  given  nearly 
twenty  years  after  the  crime,  was  hanging,  but 
in  consideration  of  the  circumstances  by  which 
the  matter  had  come  to  light,  it  was  commuted 
to  penal  servitude  for  life.  Add  together  those 
who  are  caught  red-handed,  those  who  know 
that  the  evidence  against  them  is  ample  and 
conclusive,  and  those  who  from  some  greater 
or  less  degree  of  repentance  by  no  means  want 
to  brazen  out  or  to  deny  a  fault,  and  the  net 
result  is  a  very  large  proportion  of  non-deniers 
of  oruilt. 

3.  That  a  very  small  percentage  reform  is 
another  belief  of  the  cynical,  or  the  pharisaic, 
or  the  purely  ignorant.  But  prison-workers, 
or  police-court  missionaries,  or  matrons  of 
Homes  which  receive  those  who  have  been  in 


NOT  ALL   PRISONERS  ARE   CRIMINALS      63 

prison,  have  a  different  tale  to  tell,  especially 
if  they  have  been  zealous,  inventive,  and  per- 
severing in  their  efforts  to  uplift  and  to  reform 
their  fallen  and  deformed  brothers  and  sisters. 
That  the  percentage  is  not  so  large  as  that 
claimed  by  certain  clamorous  and  self-advertising 
agencies  I  quite  admit,  but  neither  is  it  so 
small  as  people  often  think.  The  first  summary 
that  comes  to  my  hand  of  the  work  of  a  Dis- 
charged Prisoners'  Aid  Society  is  that  of 
Herefordshire,  and  from  that  I  learn  that  of  its 
clients  in  the  course  of  a  year — they  were  3S8 
in  number — 241  are  described  as  "heard  of 
and  known  to  be  satisfactory,"  while  the  rest, 
varying  from  "not  heard  of"  to  "very  un- 
satisfactory," only  amount  to  80.  vStill  statistics 
in  this  matter  must  be  imperfect,  but  the  per- 
sonal experiences  of  those  who  have  personally 
shepherded,  employed,  mothered  or  brothered, 
ex-prisoners  is  conclusive.  1  have  never  been 
robbed  of  a  farthing  by  a  servant,  and  yet  have 
had  not  a  few  whom  I  took  from  prison,  and  to 
not  a  few  I  can  point  who  have  for  years  been 
happy,  useful,  and  even  prosperous,  who 
seemed  very  tough  cases  when  in  prison. 

It  may  be  enough  to  (juote  some  passages 
from  a  letter  received  from  one  who  was  under 
my  care  as  a  convicted  prisoner.      He  wrote  : 


64  PRISONS   AND   PRISONERS 

"  On  this,  the  anniversary  of  my  release  from 
'durance  vile,'  I  ought.  I  think,  to  thank  you 
....  and  also  to  report  progress.  I  fear  you 
are  so  often  disappointed  with  the  future  of 
many  that  pass  under  your  care,  that  it  may 
be  encouraging  to  you  in  your  too  often  thank- 
less office  to  know  that  one  at  least  of  your 
enforced  parishioners  has  been  able,  with 
God's  help,  to  resume  his  place  in  respectable 
society.  ...  I  often  wonder  if  prison  chap- 
lains attach  sufficient  importance  to  their 
mission  as  the  civilising  influence  of  the  place. 
Palpable  fruit,  in  the  way  of  criminals  reclaimed 
and  actually  restored  to  the  service  of  good, 
may  very  seldom  crown  your  labours  ;  but  I 
can  imagine  that  a  body  of  criminals  deprived 
of  the  humanising  influence  of  books,  common 
prayer  and  praise,  and  the  daily  meeting  in 
chapel  to  contemplate  the  standard  of  goodness 
held  up  to  them,  would  very  soon  degenerate 
into  a  class  of  men  much  more  depraved  than 
the  present.  The  contemplation  may  be 
enforced,  and  the  standard  sneered  at,  but 
the  everlasting  dripping  of  water  will  take 
the  rough  surface  off  the  hardest  stone.  I 
don't  believe  society  is  at  all  aware  of  the 
extent  to  which  it  is  indebted  to  the  in- 
fluence in  question."      N.B. — This   letter  was 


NOT   ALL    PRISONERS   ARE   CRIMINALS      65 

(i)    unexpected  ;     (3)    written     a    year     after 

release  ;    and    (3)   came    from    one    who     had 

asked  for   nothing — three  points  that  increase 

the     value    of    the    testimony.       And    here    is 

another    that    illustrates    the    same    point.       I 

well     remember    the     man,     with     his     strong 

physical     craving    for    alcohol     that    persisted 

long   after  his    enforced  abstinence    in  prison. 

He  wrote  :    "  You  will  be  so  pleased  to  hear 

that    I   am    still    a    teetotaler.       It    is     twelve 

months    to-morrow    that    I    came    out    of    the 

House  of  Detention.   .   .   .   Tell  any  you  have 

there  now  they  need  not  despair,  for  there  was 

not  a  greater  drunkard  liveing  than    I  was.      I 

had  the  D.T.  twice.   ...    I  was  bound  to  keep 

the  peace  four  times.      It  caused  a  mutual  deed 

of  Seperation,  a  judicial  seperation,  and  last  of 

all  a  divorce.      Now   we  are  liveincr   tog-ether 

again,   and   though    brought  low   in   the   world 

we  are  happier  than  we  were  ever  before,  fiftie 

to  one.     Tell   them  to  vow  to   God  they  will 

never  touch  any  more,  and  then  kneel  in  there 

Cell  and  Pray  to  God  to  make  them  hate  it,  and 

He   will  most  assuredly  answer  there  prayers 

as  He  did  mine.      I   have  got   four  drunkards 

to  sign  the  Pledoe." 

4.    People  sometimes  imagine  that  prisoners 

are  overworked  and  underfed.     As  a  matter  of 

6 


66  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

fact  few  would  earn  their  living-  honestly  outside 
if  they  did  not  work  harder  than  they  do  inside. 
Hard  labour  sounds  hard,  but  what  is  it  ? 
Non-existent  for  women,  rare  for  male 
prisoners.  The  women  wash  or  knit  stock- 
ings, or  may  even,  according  to  recent  pro- 
posals, string-  beads  .or  dress  dolls,  but  have 
nothing  equal  to  the  work  of  an  ordinary 
laundry-woman  or  factory  hand.  The  men 
by  popular  superstition  are  all  on  the  tread- 
mill. But  these  machines  are  rarely  to  be 
found,  and  where  found  only  some  of  the 
prisoners  are  introduced  to  them,  and  these 
for  only  part  of  their  time  in  prison.  Cranks 
are  still  more  rare  now,  though  in  Wandsworth 
Prison  there  is  a  water-raisino-  machine  worked 
on  this  principle,  and  others  for  grinding  corn 
and  peas.  A  very  few  men  have  I  seen  in 
Wormwood  Scrubbs  lately  still  at  the  crank, 
that  produces  nothing  but  perspiration — a 
debasing  form  of  labour,  doomed,  but  not 
dead.  But  beyond  this  there  is  no  labour 
to  which  the  term  "  hard  "  can  fairly  be  applied, 
none  which  most  would  not  welcome  and 
entreat  as  an  alternative  to  remaining  icile  in 
their  cells.  Oakum-picking  is  tedious,  but 
this,  again,  is  a  form  of  occupation  that  is  dying 
out,  as  are  the  wooden  ships  that  used  up  the 


NOT   ALL    PRISONERS   ARE    CRIMINALS      67 

oakum.  The  hardness  is  in  the  loss  of  Hberty, 
the  monotony,  the  unaccustomed  discipHne,  and 
not  in  the  labour,  save  for  a  small  minority. 
That  they  are  not  underfed  is  conclusively 
demonstrated  by  the  common  improvement 
in  health,  and  even  sometimes  in  physique 
and  weight.  I  had  occasion  once  to  tell  a 
convicted  prisoner,  a  sporting-  publican,  that 
his  wife  had  written  and  was  fretting  about 
him,  assured  that  he  must  be  dying  by  yards 
rather  than  inches  from  the  change  in  his  habits 
and  the  difference  in  his  diet.  "Tell  her,"  he 
said,  "  I  was  weighed  this  morning,  and  have 
gained  half  a  stone  since  I  came  in."  Any 
visitor  to  a  prison  will  be  struck  by  the  very 
small  proportion  that  are  under  medical  treat- 
ment or  found  in  the  inhrmary  ;  and  will  find 
on  in([uiring  that  any  illness  is  clue  far  more  to 
ill-health  or  bad  living  before  conviction,  than 
to  any  prison  caused  weakness.  The  mortality 
in  1896  was  only  6'T,  per  1000,  and  is  rarely  one 
point  higher,  and  the  medical  inspector  rightly 
calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  "  a  very  large 
amount  of  disease  treated  in  prison  is  due  to 
a  lon-'-continued  indulgence  in  drink  ijrior  to 
admission,  so  that  for  much  of  the  disease 
returned  by  the  medical  officers  as  the  causes 
of  death  during  the  year  it  would  be  correct  to 


68  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

read  alcohol."     As  to  the  kindness  and  atten- 
tion they  receive  when  ill,  and  the  provision  of 
even  luxuries  for  them  in  the  infirmaries,  I  rely 
not  merely  on  my  memory  but  on  what  I  have 
observed   in  all  the   London  prisons,  when  for 
two  years  lately  I  visited  them  according  to  the 
right  I  then  had  as  a  justice  of  the  peace.      Of 
course  prison  food  is  scanty,  but  it  is   scientifi- 
cally selected,   prepared,   and  allowanced,  and 
generally  if  discharged  prisoners  had  the  sense 
and  the  resolution  to  make  their  dietary  when 
free  not   much   different    from  what    they   had 
known  in  prison  (notably   in    using  whole-meal 
bread  instead  of  the  non-nitrogenous  white  stuff 
commonly  bought  from  bakers),   it    would    be 
better    for   them    and   worse    for   the    doctors. 
There    was  something  comic  as    well   as   dis- 
oustine  in   a   notorious  Arch-Sensualist   lately 
complaining   of   prison    food  after   his    all    too 
short   imprisonment.      The   grumbling    chiefly 
comes  from  those  who  obviously  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  eatinor  and  drinking  too  much  in  their 
free  life  ;  better  educated  and  more  thoughtful 
prisoners  have  very  commonly  discovered  with 
satisfaction   lines  of  dietetic  reform  which  will 
be   of  advantage  to    them  hereafter.       Of  the 
cravino"  for   tobacco,  for  alcohol,  and   for  more 
food,  the  first   is,  in   racing  language,  an    easy 
first,  and  the  last  a  bad  third. 


MOUTHPIECES  69 

3.   MouTnriECEs. 

A  leader  in  the  Standard  once  dealt 
with  the  subject  of  the  defence  of  prisoners, 
and  proved  excellently  that  "  if  a  larger 
number  of  indicted  persons  had  profes- 
sional assistance  on  their  trials  than  is 
actually  the  case,"  it  would  be  a  very  good 
thing — for  the  lawyers.  Though  it  admitted 
that  sometimes  the  telling  a  plain  un- 
varnished tale  by  the  accused  obtains  an 
acquittal,  which  a  closer  analysis  of  the 
evidence  rendered  necessary  by  the  conflict 
of  counsel  would  have  made  impossible,  it 
did  not  state,  as  it  might  have  done,  in  how 
very  many  cases  it  is  as  absurd  to  engage 
counsel  as  it  would  be  to  pay  a  doctor  for 
washing  one's  hands,  or  to  take  an  architect's 
advice  as  to  the  setting  of  a  mousetrap.  No 
one  who  has  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
criminal  classes,  or  even  with  the  poor,  can  be 
ignorant  of  the  prevalence  and  strength  of  the 
superstition  that  nothing  can  be  done  or  said 
without  a  solicitor  at  least  being  employed  ; 
and,  further,  that  in  some  uncovenanted  way, 
the  mere  appearance  of  a  legal  friend  must 
inevitably  mitigate  the  punishment  inflicted. 
And  some  striking  tales   could  be  told   of  the 


70  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

ways  and  means  by  which  this  idea  is  promul- 
gated by  the  class  to  whom  its  existence  is  so 
profitable.  A  Commission,  like  that  on  usurers, 
that  would  elicit  the  evidence  that  could  readily 
be  produced  as  to  the  extortionate  sums  wrung 
from  the  poor  by  some  police  court  lawyers  ; 
of  the  wrong  and  ruin  produced  by  the  im- 
morality of  receiving  fees,  not  only  when  no 
appearance  is  made,  but  when  it  was  known 
beforehand  that  none  could  be  made  ;  that 
would  inquire  why,  in  some  police  courts, 
policemen  of  various  grades  are  found  to 
suggest,  soon  after  a  culprit  is  placed  in  the 
cells,  not  only  the  employment  of  a  lawyer, 
but  of  Mr.  So-and-so  ;  that  would  ask  if  prison 
warders  were  not  subject  to  solicitation  from 
some  firms  of  solicitors  to  introduce  business  to 
them,  of  course  for  a  consideration  ;  such  a 
Commission  would  throw  unexpected  light  upon 
some  remarkably  murky  corners,  and  would 
reclaim  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  flies  a  huge 
amount  of  sustenance  that  now  bloats  a  few 
spiders.  Over  and  over  again,  some  such 
conversation  as  this  was  carried  on  between 
me  and  a  prisoner  who,  though  admitting  his 
guilt,  and  having  nothing  to  say  against  the 
evidence,  has  yet  been  drawing  out  every  penny 
from  the  bank,  or  allowing  the  wife  or  friends 


MOUTHPIECES  71 

to  cripple  themselves  in  the  present,  and  thereby 
deprive  themselves  of  the  power  of  helping  the 
man  when  he  most  needed  help,  on  leaving 
prison  :  "  You  have  engaged  a  lawyer,  you  say, 
though  you  are  pleading  guilty  ?  "  "  Yes,  sir." 
"Why?"  "Blessed  if  I  know;  but  they  all 
told  me  I  ought  to."  "Can  you  afford  it.-*" 
"Well,  I've  drawn  out  all  I  had."  "And,  as 
you  expect  three  months  or  so,  would  not  that 
have  been  better  spent  in  keeping  your  home 
together,  and  your  family  from  the  rates  while 
you  are  away  ;  or  would  it  not  do  you  more 
good  while  you  are  trying  to  get  work  after 
your  discharge  than  it  can  now?  "  "  I  expect 
it  would."  "  What  is  your  lawyer  going  to  do 
for  you  ?  What  have  you  instructed  him  to 
say?"  "  Only  that  I  hope  his  worship  will 
lean  to  me  as  nearly  as  he  can."  "Couldn't 
you  say  that  yourself,  or  write  out  what  you 
have  to  say  and  hand  it  up  ?  "  "  Yes."  "Then, 
when  you  have  no  defence,  have  no  witnesses 
to  call  or  to  cross-examine,  and  no  difficult 
points  of  law  are  involved,  you  yet  think  it 
necessary  to  employ  a  lawyer  ?  "  The  matter 
is  more  serious  than  it  may  seem,  and  so  many 
cases  arise  of  perfectly  unnecessary  distress, 
caused  by  this  simple  superstition,  encouraged 
by  the  greed  and  touting  of  a  profession   that 


72  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

should  be  above  such  things,  that  much 
good  would  accrue  if  those  who  have  the 
ear  of  their  poorer  and  less  instructed 
brethren  would  disabuse  them  of  this  expen- 
sive  idea. 

One  good  thing,  however,  the  article  did,  it 
exposed  the  untruth  of  another  fallacy  kept  up 
by  the  same  interested  persons,  namely,  that  a 
barrister  can  only  be  employed  through  the 
medium  of  a  solicitor.  No  doubt  this  must 
in  most  cases  be  so,  and  an  iniquity  it  is.  That 
the  profitable  co-partnership  of  these  two  classes 
of  lawyers  makes  one  law  for  the  rich  and 
another  for  the  poor,  and  gives  a  premium  to 
crime  that  has  been  successful  ;  but  yet  it  should 
be  more  widely  known  that  for  ^i  3s.  6d.  the 
accused  can  secure  the  services  of  any  member 
of  the  junior  bar  then  in  court  ;  and  this 
expense  will  be  quite  sufficient  for  the  numerous 
cases  in  which  the  prisoner  has  nothing  to  say, 
or  no  instructions  that  may  not  be  given  in  five 
minutes,  or  have  been  written  on  a  sheet  of 
foolscap.  It  is  well  that  the  British  public 
should  have  a  reverence  for  the  majesty  of 
the  law,  but  a  divinity  may  become  a  fatuous 
idol,  and  many  foul  things  may  cluster  in  the 
crevices  of  the  most  brilliant  chandelier,  while 
none  need  pay  for  the  electric   light   in  order 


MOUTHPIECES  73 

that  they  may  see  whether  it  is  day.  A  little 
less  trades  unionism  of  the  meaner  sort  on 
the  part  of  lawyers  would  be  a  gain  to 
their  own  consciences  as  well  as  to  the 
pockets  of  the  poor  ;  nor  need  they  bring 
suspicion  on  an  honourable  profession  by 
the  tricks  by  which  grist  is  brought  to  their 
mill. 


CHAPTER   IV 

I.  Money  Spent  on  Drink. — 2.  Phraseology  about 
Drink. —  3.  Teetotalers  in  Prison. — 4.  Proportion 
of  Drink-caused  Crime. 

I.   Money  Spent  on   Drink. 

LUXURY  and  even  extravagance  is  some- 
times defended  by  the  ignorant  and  by 
superficial  thinkers  as  being  good  for  the 
community,  although  bad  for  the  individual. 
Luxury  sustains  the  State,  they  say,  and  what- 
ever makes  money  circulate  must  be  good. 
But  rightly  a  philosopher  answered  that 
"  Luxury  sustains  the  vState  only  as  the  rope 
sustains  the  man  who  is  hung,"  and  to  applaud 
the  circulation  of  money  without  considering 
the  cause,  and  still  more  the  effects,  of  its  cir- 
culation shows  an  absence  of  either  the  power 
or  the  desire  to  think.  The  following  notes 
and  cases  of  the  amount  spent,  mainly  by 
members  of  the  labouring  class,  in  drink,  will 


74 


MONEY   SPENT   ON    DRINK  75 

repay  the  thought  spent  on  their  immediate 
result  to  the  drinker,  his  companions,  his 
imitators,  his  family,  and  on  the  pecuniary  loss 
almost  certain  to  accrue  to  the  State  when 
extravaofance,  with  its  concomitant  thouohtless- 
ness,  brings  the  majority  of  the  extravagant  to 
a  state  of  dependence  on  others.  The  "  regu- 
lars "  of  a  labourer  who  prides  himself  upon 
his  temperance  are  commonly  sixpence  a  day, 
and  when  a  man  mentions  his  "  reo^ulars,"  or 
computes  his  annual  expenditure  on  their  basis, 
he  never  allows  for  what  is  called  in  Ireland 
"circumstantial  drinking,"  i.e.,  the  extra  glass 
on  Saturday,  or  when  he  meets  or  leaves  an 
old  friend,  the  orlass  of  the  weddino-  or  the 
funeral,  the  "keeping"  Christmas,  the  bean- 
feast, or  the  bank  holiday.  Yet  the  annual 
value  of  such  moderate  "  regulars  "  is  over  ^9, 
and  when  one  finds  the  expressed  gratification 
of  those  who  by  the  temporary  sanity  of  total 
abstinence  for  awhile  have  found  how  much 
they  have  been  enabled  to  save,  then  one  may 
express  some  astonishment  that  those  to  whom 
the  absence  of  any  savings  or  capital  is  a  con- 
tinual hindrance  and  a  disaster  in  the  hour  of 
special  need  should  ever  have  gone  back  t(3 
the  profitably  abandoned  regulars.  Here  are 
cases  I  noted  :— 


76  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

Coal  porter,  once  teetotal  for  two  and  a  half 
years  and  saved  ^52. 

Cabman,  teetotal  for  eight  months,  saved 
^5,  and  now  in  prison  from  inability  to  pay  a 
small  fine. 

Collier,  knows  men  who  worked  with  him 
who  owned  from  twenty-five  to  thirty  houses 
as  the  result  of  their  beinsf  teetotalers,  but  he 
himself  (a  young  man  aged  24)  usually  spends 
six  hours  in  the  evening  in  public-houses,  and 
has  taken  seventeen  fourpenny  worths  of  whisky 
at  a  sitting. 

Coal-whipper,  was  once  teetotal  for  nine 
months  and  saved  ^10,  now  makes  from  £2 
to  £i\  a  week,  but  spends  up  to  even  ^i  in  a 
day  sometimes  in  beer  for  himself  and  others. 

Sailor,  spent  £Ty^  in  a  month  in  drink  "  with 
nothing  to  show  for  it  except  being  here,"  once 
was  a  teetotaler  for  eighteen  months  when  a 
bluejacket,  and  saved  ^43. 

Another  young  man,  aged  21,  was  teetotal 
for  nine  months  and  saved  £(i  and  £\  worth  of 
clothes,  but  all  went  in  one  month  of  drinking. 

Navvy,  a  powerful  man,  aged  28,  in  for 
begging,  was  teetotal  for  two  years  and  saved 
;/^75,  broke  the  pledge,  drew  out  the  money, 
and  spent  it  all  in  six  weeks. 

Coachman,   old   soldier,    had  ^200   savings, 


MONEY   SPENT   ON    DRINK  77 

but  spent   it   all    in   drink   between    November 
and   March. 

Other  cases  that  I  investigated  help  to  show 
why  ^34,000  are  readily  given  for  a  public- 
house,  even  in  poor  Walworth,  and  why  brewers 
become  the  milch-cow  of  the  political  party 
they  most  favour  : — 

Brass-finisher,  earns  38s.  weekly,  gives  his 
mother  8s.  for  his  board  and  lodging,  spent 
£2  5s.  on  bank  holiday  drinking  from  10  a.m. 
to  midnight,  then  is  taken  up  for  assaulting  the 
police. 

Sailor,  spent  ^15  and  £^  los.  from  an 
advance  note  in  ten  days  in  Ratcliffe  Highway 
public-houses. 

Soldier,  spent  30s.  last  Sunday. 

Umbrella  maker,  spends  2s.  to  3s.  a  day 
"  when  in  luck." 

Woman,  23,  deputy  in  lodging-house,  stole 
^5  I2S.  and  spent  it  in  two  days. 

Woman,  on  discharge  from  nine  months, 
received  money  from  her  husband  in  Leeds 
to  take  her  home,  met  at  the  gate  by  two  old 
prisoners,  got  drunk,  and  next  day  had  only  5s. 
left  out  of  £2  7s.  9d.,  next  day  locked  up  for 
being  drunk,  next  day  tor  theft. 

Gasfitter,  19,  earns  7d.  an  hour,  scores  8s.  a 
week. 


78  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

Militiaman,  spent  all  his  pay  (25s.)  in  one 
day. 

Man,  who  scores  15s.  a  week,  in  prison  for 
beating  his  wife,  and  his  wife  in  for  breaking 
the  windows  of  a  publican  who  would  serve 
him  in  spite  of  her  remonstrance. 

Sailor,  spent  ^65  in  two  weeks. 

Butler,  absconds  with  ^^240,  spent  all  in  one 
month,  chiefly  in  drink,  in  Paris,  "never  sober 
till  arrested." 

Man,  28,  began  at  6  a.m.  with  rum,  spent 
7s.  of  his  own.  then  sold  a  donkey  to  a  sweep 
for  25s.,  appropriated  the  money,  and  had  only 
3^d.  left  at  the  end  of  the  day. 

Gas-stoker,  32,  earns  ^i  17s.  6d.,  spends 
2s.  4d.  in  lodging,  8s.  in  food,  4d.  in  washing, 
the  rest  mainly  in  drink,  and  is  always  run  out 
of  money  by  Tuesday. 

Coal-heaver,  gets  5s.  or  6s.  a  day,  sometimes 
£1,  gives  parents  5s.  6d.  a  week  for  board  and 
lodging,  spends  rest  "  in  drink  very  much." 

Felt-maker,  earns  17s.,  wife  earns  8s.  as 
carpet  bag  maker,  they  have  regularly  five 
pints  a  day  and  ten  on  Saturdays  and  Sundays. 

Labourer,  several  times  in  for  attempting 
suicide  when  drunk,  spent  36s.  on  the  Saturday 
before  the  Boat-race,  and  usually  £\  a  week  in 
drink. 


MONEY   SPENT   ON    DRINK  79 

Boy,  aged  16,  was  in  a  public  from  7.30  to 
II,  spent  5s.,  in  for  stabbing. 

Cabman,  stopped  at  fifteen  public-houses  in 
four  hours  with  a  friend. 

Soldier,  on  furlough,  drank  i  is.  one  day, 
9s.  the  next,  and   then  attempted  suicide. 

A  labourer's  regulars,  five  or  six  pints  a  day. 

A  milkman's  seven  or  eight  pints  daily. 

A  leather-worker,  aged  60,  in  for  begging, 
has  averaged  six  or  seven  pints  a  day  for  forty 
years,  never  drunk,  is  astonished  when  I  show 
him  he  has  spent  over  ^730  in  beer. 

Stevedore,  aged  21,  earns  34s.  and  is  always 
in  work,  yet  has  no  second  coat  to  his  back, 
gives  I2S.  to  his  parents  for  his  keep,  and 
spends  the  rest  in  beer,  in  for  assaulting  a 
man  from  whom  he  got  beer  illicitly  on  Sunday 
morning,  father  a  teetotaler  of  twenty  years' 
stand  ini^. 

Coal-whipper,  earns  7s.  or  8s.  daily  on  an 
average,  but  lives  in  a  fourpenny  lodging-house 
and  has  nothing  saved,  smashed  the  window  of 
a  public-house  in  which  he  had  been  drinking 
all  day,  his  brother  doing  six  months  for  a 
similar  offence  in  the  same  house. 

Labourer,    spent    i6s.    of    his    wages    (24s.) 
before  6.30  on  Saturday,  stole  when  drunk. 
Wife    of    gardener,    owes    grocer    ^22    for 


8o  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

bottled  beer  on  an  eicrhteen  months'  bill,  twelve 
dozen  empty  botdes  found  in  house. 

Man,  aged  54,  left  Clerkenwell  Prison  with 
los.  gratuity  for  good  behaviour,  spent  in  two 
days,  and  then  locked  up  for  being  drunk. 

Married  woman,  aged  26,  spends  a  shilling 
a  day  in  laudanum,  in  prison  for  obtaining 
money  by  fraud  in  order  to  get  more  of  the 
drug-. 


2.   Phraseology  about  Drink. 

The  common  phraseology  about  the  habit 
of  drinking  is  instructive  in  various  ways,  and 
I  often  noted  down  the  brief  expressions  by 
which  an  excuse  was  attempted.  Prisoners 
become  more  reasonable  and  able  to  reason  in 
the  quiet  and  sobriety  of  a  cell,  and  therefore 
rarely  attempt  to  justify  intemperance,  or  to 
imagine  that  a  reason  for  drinking  can  be  found, 
but  as  they  yet  remain  human  beings  they  have 
that  power  and  that  desire  to  excuse  a  foolish  or 
wrong  action  which  is  distinctive  of  man  com- 
pared with  other  animals.  The  most  intempe- 
rate are  the  most  temperate  in  the  description 
they  give  of  their  usual  quota.  A  man  speaks 
only  of  his  'arf-pint,  a  woman  of  her  few  drops, 
and    I   attempted    once   to  cast  some  salutary 


PHRASEOLOGY   ABOUT    DRINK  8i 

ridicule  on  the  universal  drop  in  die  following- 
fashion  : — 

"  I  felt  a  kind  of  sinking,  and  thought  I  had 
better  have  a  drop,  so  I  dropped  into  the 
'Green  Man.'  'Drop  of  summat  short,' 
says  I.  'What!  them  sinkings  again,  old 
man  !  '  says  Bill,  whom  I  didn't  see  at  first, 
round  the  corner.  'Come,  drop  that,' says  I. 
'  You're  always  dropping  down  on  to  a  poor 
fellow.'  '  Poor  enough  you'll  be  soon  if  you 
don't  look  out,'  says  he,  'for  I  heard  the  boss 
say  if  you  didn't  drop  your  dropping  in  to  have 
your  drop  he'd  soon  drop  you  out  of  his 
books.'  'Who  cares  .'^'  says  I,  though  in  a 
bit  of  a  stew.  '  Besides,  I  can't  oo  on  now  ; 
it's  raining.'  'Raining,'  says  he;  'it's  only  a 
drop  or  two,  and  I  thought  you  liked  a  drop.' 
"So  I  does,'  says  I,  'but  not  neat  like  that 
there  rain.'  So  I  stops  and  has  another  drop 
to  keep  the  wet  out,  and  at  last  I  drops  asleep 
or  something — anyhow,  the  potman  picks  me 
up  and  drops  me  down  in  a  pool  of  mud  out- 
side. How  I  got  home  I  don't  know,  but  I 
know  the  missus  dropped  into  me  pretty  heavy 
when  she  found  my  pockets  empty.  '  I  must 
have  dropped  the  money,'  says  I.  '  So  you 
have,'  says  she,  '  dropped  it  all  away,  three 
penn'orth  at  a  time,'  and  she  gives  it  me   hot, 

7 


82  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

hotter  than  the  drops  were,  'cos  I  likes  them 
loowarm,  with  sugar.  And  when  I  drops  into 
the  yard  on  Monday  morning,  a  bit  latish  and 
beerified,  Bill's  words  come  true,  and  the  boss, 
he  gives  me  the  sack.  So  here  I  be.  I  only 
dropped  into  the  pub,  along  of  a  drop  of  rain, 
to  have  a  drop,  when  I  drops  my  money,  drops 
on  the  floor,  and  gets  dropped  into  the  gutter. 
Then  my  wife  drops  into  me,  and  Bill,  he  says, 
'  Drop  it.'  I'll  have  another  drop  and  think 
about  it.  What  a  lot  o'  different  sorts  of  drops 
a  sinking  leads  to  !  " 

It  was  useful  sometimes  to  lead  my  friends 
to  define  the  palliative  phrases  that  they  used, 
and  so  they  admitted  "had  sufficient"  meant 
seven  glasses,  "a  few  glasses  "  meant  twelve, 
"  one  or  two  drops  "  was  eight  half-pints,  "  a 
little  "  was  six  classes  of  rum,  besides  beer, 
before  noon,  and  "had  a  drop"  was  more 
accurately  "  somewheres  about  three  or  four 
ofallons." 

Others  vindicated  their  sobriety  or  modera- 
tion by  saying,  "  Been  up  several  times  for 
drunk  and  disorderly,  but  never  for  anything 
wrong";  "Had  twenty  goes  of  brandy,  but 
didn't  lose  my  head";  "Wasn't  drunk,  but 
fit  "  ;  "I  gets  over  the  mark  on  Saturdays, 
but  generally  keeps  right  on  working  clays  "  ; 


PHRASEOLOGY   ABOUT   DRINK  83 

"  Had  four  glasses  of  spirits  and  one  of  beer, 
but  that's  nothing-";  "Never  a  professional 
(i.e.,  professed)  teetotaler";  "I'm  rather  a 
temperate  person  in  a  manner  of  speaking- " 
(though  drunk  when  admitted  to  prison)  ; 
"I'm  no  unnatural  drinker";  "Only  a 
periodical  drunkard  "  (had  delirium  tremens 
several  times)  ;  "  It's  a  hard  thing  a  man  can't 
get  drunk  with  his  own  earnings  "  (which  is 
what  some  M.P.'s  mean  by  the  precious  liberty 
of  the  subject  which  must  obstruct  all  legisla- 
tion for  social  reform)  ;  "  I  don't  drink,  I'm 
rather  the   other  way." 

Yet  on  the  other  hand  many  acknowledge 
their  slavery  and  know  that  any  moderate 
drinking  is  an  absurdity  and  an  impossibility 
for  them.  One  man  summed  the  position  up 
tersely  and  pregnantly  when  he  said,  "  Directly 
you  get  a  taste  too  much  ain't  enough." 
Another  admits,  "  There's  no  medium  in  me 
when  I  begin  to  drink."  Another  sorrow- 
fully said,  "  I  can't  keep  from  spirits  ;  I 
couldn't  keep  a  resolution  unless  all  pubs  were 
shut  up.'"'  Another's  phrase  was,  "If  I  get  a 
taste  I  can't  leave  it."  Another  confessed,  "  I 
feel  like  a  lish  out  of  water  when  discharged 
till  I  get  about  half  drunk."  Another  (sent  to 
penal  servitude   for   threatening   the    I'lince   of 


84  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

Wales)  told  me,  "If  I  get  the  smell  of  the 
drink  it's  one  day  champagne  and  the  next  day 
water  with  me,"  which  being  interpreted  is, 
I  must  drink  until  all  my  money  is  gone. 
Another  once  abstained  for  three  weeks  after 
an  attack  of  delirium  tremens,  but  "  felt  lost 
without  the  drink."  Another's  statement  of  a 
physiological  fact  (for  many)  was  "  The  more 
beer  you  drinks  the  more  you  wants."  Another 
said,  "  Two  little  drops  will  make  me  funnified, 
and  one  more  drunk"  ("  Shun  the  third  glass," 
wrote  the  saintly  George  Herbert,  of  Bemerton). 
Other  expressions  I  noted  were,  "  I  feel  like  a 
dead  man  without  it,"  "  If  I  get  over  a  couple 
of  pints  I  must  spend  all  I  have,"  "  I  has  a 
drop  because  suckling,  and  when  I  has  a  drop 
I  must  have  a  lot." 


3.  Teetotalers  in   Prison. 

That  "crime  is  condensed  beer"  is  a 
generalisation  rough  but  in  the  majority  of 
instances  true,  and  yet  we  must  not  assume 
that  total  abstinence  is  condensed  virtue  or  a 
panacea  against  all  temptations.  Very  few 
prisoners  had  not  been  teetotalers  at  some 
time  or  other  for  long  or  short  periods  (and 
therefore  were    deprived    of    the    ancient     ex- 


TEETOTALERS    IN    PRISON  85 

cuse  that  abstinence  was  impossible  in  their 
particular  avocation  or  to  their  peculiar  con- 
stitution), and  though  in  some  cases  the 
claim  to  be  teetotalers  was,  no  doubt,  falsely 
made,  yet  in  not  a  few  it  was  certainly  not. 
Having-  met  with  an  idea  (bolstered  up  by  a 
dictum  of  a  governor  of  another  prison)  that 
teetotalers  were  never  found  in  prison,  I 
observed  and  inquired  closely  for  the  year 
1877  and  found  about  fifty  cases  amongst  those 
under  my  care,  and  these  were  in  for  theft, 
wife-beating,  assault,  desertion,  burglary  (had 
taken  the  pledge  from  me  and  kept  it  four 
months),  assault  on  paramour,  fraud,  false 
pretences,  shoplifting,  fighting,  furious  driving, 
murder  (an  awful  but  obscure  case — acquitted), 
stealing-  a  Bible,  assaulting  wife  (only  married 
three  weeks),  assault  on  sister  of  concubine, 
obscene  language,  and  arson.  One  murderer, 
who  was  hanged  for  taking  the  life  of  his 
employer  in  a  passion,  had  long  been  an 
abstainer,  but  was  of  ungovernable  temper 
and  impenitent  to  the  kist.  Another  young 
man  who  was  a  life  abstainer,  and  had  been 
for  nine  years  a  Band  of  Hope  member, 
had  had  three  terms  of  imprisonment  up  to 
eighteen  months  before  he  came  to  Clerken- 
well.     Another,  a  teetotaler  for  fourteen  years 


86  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

and  a  Good  Templar  for  seven,  was  in  for 
begging  and  foul  language.  An  old  man  of 
seventy-two  had  been  an  abstainer  for  forty 
years  and  a  writer  for  the  Temperance  Press. 
A  soldier,  in  for  desertion,  had  taken  the 
pledge  when  reduced  from  the  rank  of  corporal 
three  years  ago.  A  similar,  and  yet  dissimilar, 
case  that  interested  me  much  was  that  of  a 
colour-sergeant,  eleven  years  a  teetotaler,  who 
absented  himself  from  his  regiment  in  order  to 
get  reduced  on  account  of  his  wife,  who  had 
progressed  in  narcomania  until  she  took  i6o 
drops  of  chlorodyne  at  once.  Let  none  imagine 
that  no  prisons  or  police-courts  would  be  needed 
but  for  the  facilities  for  and  the  habits  of 
drinking  ;  but  yet  in  the  absence  of  the  liquor 
traffic  one  police-court  and  one  prison  would 
certain  be  sufficient  for  the  Metropolis.  Thus 
one  day  I  obtained  a  return  from  Marylebone 
Police  Court  and  found — 


Monday,        59  charges,  of  which  49  for  drunkenness. 

Tuesday,        29  ,,  ,,  20  „ 

Wednesday,  23  ,,  „  22  ,, 

Thursday,        9  „  »  7 

Friday,           23  „  „  15  „ 

Saturday,       11  ,,  „  11  ,, 

154  124 


PROPORTION    OF    DRINK-CAUSED    CRIME    87 

4.   Proportion   of   Drink-Caused  Crime. 

Sometimes  those  who  are  concerned  to 
minimise  the  evils  and  the  national  expense 
caused  by  drinking,  quote  the  numbers  given 
in  official  statistics  as  being  charged  with 
drunkenness  or  as  being  drunk  and  disorderly, 
and  assumino-  that  this  is  all  show  what  a  small 
portion  they  bear  to  the  general  population,  or 
even  to  the  total  of  offences  of  all  descriptions. 
Thus  under  the  head  of  non-indictable  offences 
in  the  last  year  for  which  we  have  the  Judicial 
Statistics  the  grand  total  of  persons  appre- 
hended or  dealt  with  on  summons  is  628,265, 
of  whom  only  169,344  are  under  the  head  of 
Drunkenness.  Even  this  means  that  more 
than  a  quarter  of  the  offenders  were  drunk, 
but  no  one  who  had  gone  into  the  cases  of 
the  rest,  or  even  read  a  daily  paper,  would 
be  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  by  a  most  moderate 
estimate  half  the  cases  of  common  assaults, 
three-quarters  of  assaults  on  the  police,  and 
half  the  aofSfravated  assaults,  were  committed 
by  drunken  persons.  This  would  give  us 
28,294—8,592—953,  total  37,839,  to  add  to 
the  169,344  bringing  it  up  to  207,183.  Cruelty 
to  animals  and  cruelty  to  children  again  account 
together   for    15,660   cases,   and   of   these   hall 


88  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

might  fairly  be  considered  directly  drink- 
caused,  as  also  might  be  half  of  the  10,773 
cases  of  malicious  damage  of  the  ordinary  kind, 
window  smashino-  and  so  forth,  and  half  of 
such  military  and  naval  offences  (chiefly 
desertion),  as  come  before  the  police-courts 
to'  the  number  of  4,560.  These  moieties 
would  come  to  15,496,  and  would  bring  the 
drink  charges  up  to  222,679.  Then  one 
knows  the  number  of  cases  under  other  heads, 
under  nearly  every  head,  in  fact,  which  are 
indirectly  caused  by  drink,  e.g.,  thefts  by  or 
from  drunken  persons,  and  one  speedily  arrives 
at  the  conclusion  that  to  estimate  half  all  crime 
as  directly,  and  an  additional  one-fourth  as 
indirectly,  drink  caused,  is  a  moderate  estimate 
and  below  that  which  most  experts,  such  as 
judges,  magistrates,  chief  constables,  and 
prison  officials,  have  over  and  over  again 
eiven  as  the  result  of  their  observation.  Then 
further,  one  has  to  note  that  the  police  figures 
onlv  account  for  such  drunkards  and  for  such 
drink-caused  offences  as  have  come  under  the 
cognisance  of  the  law,  and  by  no  means  give 
the  full  amount  of  the  national  expense,  or 
loss,  or  nuisance  for  which  intemperance  is 
responsible.  Any  doctor,  parish  priest,  or 
relieving  officer  would  know  that  of  every  ten 


PROPORTION    OF   DRINK-CAUSED   CRIME    89 

persons  known  to  him  as  frequently  or  even 
habitually  intemperate  not  more  than  one  or 
two  had  come  into  the  hands  of  the  police. 
The  police  figures  give,  in  fact,  only  one  item, 
and  that  by  no  means  the  largest,  In  the  bill 
the  nation  has  to  present  against  intemper- 
ance as  a  cause  of  unnecessary  and  easily  pre- 
ventible  expenditure  or  loss. 

Further  to  emphasise  the  point  that  the 
minimisers  of  the  evil  and  national  loss  caused 
by  drink  are  but  misleading  people  when  they 
attempt  to  confine  the  effects  of  intemperance 
as  a  cause  of  crime  to  those  cases  in  which  the 
word  "  drink  "  appears  on  the  charge-sheet  or 
in  the  calendar,  I  take  the  following  cases  from 
a  page  of  my  note-book.  Not  one  of  them 
suiffrests  drunkenness  in  the  title  of  the  offence, 
and  yet  in  every  one  drink  was  the  chief  and 
generally  the  sole  cause  of  the  crime. 

Stca/in(^  pony  mid  cart. — A  young  man  out 
on  his  employer's  business  spends  some  of  the 
money  he  had  collected  in  a  public-house,  and 
therefore  fears  to  face  his  master,  and  recollect- 
ing the  devil's  proverb,  '•  As  well  be  hung  for 
a  sheep  as  a  lamb,"  sells  the  pony  and  cart. 
As  he  expressed  the  matter  to  me,  "  The  first 
word  of  your  mouth  when  you're  drunk  is  you 
don't  care  for  nothing — so  there  you  are  !  " 


go  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

Desertion. — A  young  soldier,  aged  21.  He 
had  five  times  been  fined  in  the  army  for  being 
drunk,  got  drunk  again,  knew  he  would  be 
court-martialled,  and  so  deserted,  having  made 
away  with  his  kit  to  get  drink  as  his  pay  had 
been  stopped  for  the  fine. 

Utteidng. — A  man,  aged  35,  charged  with 
passing  bad  money,  to  which  mean  form  of 
theft,  which  especially  injures  the  poorer  trades- 
people, he  had  descended.  He  was  once  a 
master- baker,  then  a  tobacconist,  and  went 
down  and  down  till  he  got  to  be  a  mere  four- 
penny  lodging-house  man.  He  had  been 
separated  from  his  wife  through  his  drunken- 
ness, had  five  brothers,  four  of  whom  had  died 
through  drink,  all  six  of  the  family  having  been 
heavv  drinkers. 

Criminal  assault  on  his  stepdaughter,  aged 
thirteen,  on  a  Saturday  night,  after  he  had 
been  drinking  from  ten  to  twelve  with  his 
mates,  and  then  with  his  wife  all  the  day  up  to 
9  p.m. 

Larceny. — A  married  woman,  aged  35,  stole 
thirty  shillings  from  her  landlady  to  get  drink  ; 
spent  it  all  in  liquor.  "  My  husband  coaxes 
me,  and  does  everything  he  can  to  help  me 
from  drink — includino-  beatincr." 

Larceny, — A  woman,    aged   52,    stole    from 


PROPORTION    OF   DRINK-CAUSED   CRIME    91 

the  publican  whose  servant  she  had  been  for 
three  months.  Twenty-seven  empty  spirit 
bottles  found  in  her  room. 

Arson. — An  ancient  of  y 2)  yey-fs,  locked  up 
for  being  drunk,  set  fire  to  his  cell. 

Indecency. — The  man  had  four  previous  con- 
victions (of  three,  three,  twelve,  and  six 
months)  for  the  same  offence,  which  was  only 
thought  of  and  committed  when  drunk. 

Illegal  pawning. — A  married  woman,  with 
three  children  left  out  of  seven,  stole  various 
articles  from  her  landlady  so  that  she  might 
get  drink  money  without  her  husband's  know- 
ledgre. 

Begging. — ^A  woman,  aged  44,  seven  out  of 
ten  children  alive,  her  husband  fairly  well  to 
do,  begged  simply  to  get  money  for  drink, 

Btirglaiy. — A  married  woman,  had  been 
intemperate  for  four  years.  Frequent  rows 
therefore  with  her  husband.  Afraid  to  sio 
home  because  she  had  been  drinking"  in  the 
afternoon  ;  therefore  she  stayed  out,  and  at 
half-past  three  broke  into  a  public-house  to  get 
more  drink. 

Theft. — A  medical  man,  aged  43,  had  once 
his  carriage  and  pair  and  published  several 
books.  Lost  all  through  drinking  though  he 
had    been    a   teetotaler  up   to  the   age  of   2)0' 


92  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

His  wife  drank  ^44  worth  of  brandy  and  wine 
in  a  year  and  died  of  abscess  on  the  brain 
through  her  drinking. 

A  class  by  itself  is  formed  by  those  who  get 
a  mean  and  a  risky  living  by  passing  bad 
money.  Looked  down  upon  by  ordinary  thieves 
with  some  right  feeling,  since  it  is  mainly  the 
poor  and  small  corner-shops  that  suffer  from 
their  operations,  the  men  and  the  women  who 
utter  the  "snide,"  or  spurious  coin,  are  gene- 
rally so  down  in  the  world  and  so  incapable  that, 
in  despair  of  any  ordinary  and  honest  means  of 
livelihood,  they  fall  victims  to  the  invitations 
of  the  agents  of  the  coiners.  The  actual 
coiners  are  frequently  men  of  some  technical 
skill  who  have  been,  or  might  be,  artisans. 
Their  agents  are  very  rarely  caught,  as  they 
conduct  their  operations  with  much  craft  and 
caution,  though  plenty  know  their  usual  haunts, 
which  are  generally  public-houses  in  such  neigh- 
bourhoods as  the  Seven  Dials,  the  City  Road, 
or  the  Borough.  One  agent  on  the  Dials  was 
said  to  issue  four  hundred  coins  a  day.  The 
distributors  who  pass  the  money  sometimes 
make  considerable  profit  until  they  are  caught, 
but  their  risks  are  out  of  all  proportion  to  those 
of  the  ordinary  thief  One  man  told  me  he 
could  work  off  fourscore  florins  a  day  ;  another 


PROPORTION    OF    DRINK-CAUSED   CRIME    93 

said  he  had  made  ^5  in  a  day  at  the  Doncaster 
Races,  but  this  man  was  caught  five  days  after 
he  first  began  "  snide-pitching,"  and  got  six 
weeks'  imprisonment  ;  then,  after  a  month's 
run,  was  again  caught,  and  got  seven  years' 
penal  servitude,  and,  though  he  had  only  been 
four  months  free,  had  again  been  apprehended 
when  our  conversation  occurred.  They  gene- 
rally work  in  pairs,  one  to  carry  the  coin  and 
another  to  enter  the  shops,  alternating  to  give 
each  an  equal  chance  of  bolting  when  neces- 
sary. The  prices,  of  course,  vary  according  to 
the  excellence  of  manufacture,  but  what  I 
found  usual  were  from  eighteenpence  to  half 
a  crown  for  a  spurious  half-sovereign,  two 
shillings  for  six  half-crowns,  or  ten  half-crowns 
for  three  and  fourpence,  threepence  halfpenny 
for  a  florin.  The  adulteration  of  any  but  gold 
and  silver  coins  is  rare,  but  I  had  a  lad  of 
sixteen  under  me  once  who  for  three  months 
had  been  passing  spurious  halfpennies  made  of 
copper  and  zinc,  which  he  bought  at  the  rate 
of  sixpence  for  eighteen-penny worth.  His  plan 
was  to  buy  stamps  therewith,  and  then  to 
change  the  stamps  at  ease.  The  profits  are 
thus  considerable  to  those  that  arc  incapable 
or  not  desirous  of  earning  anything  by  toil,  and 
an   intellii/ent   old  convict   said   nothing"   would 


94  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

stop  or  check  uttering  until  the  French  system 
was  adopted,  and  the  first  offence  might  involve 
penal  servitude  as  a  crime  and  not  merely 
imprisonment  as  a  misdemeanour.  It  may  be 
noted,  however,  that  the  annual  average  of 
persons  tried  for  coining-  and  uttering  was  314 
for  the  five  years  ending  1884,  and  it  dropped 
to  264  for  the  quinquennium  1885  to  1889,  and 
further  to  147  by  1894. 


CHAPTER   V 

I.   Prison   Slang. — 2.  A  Thief's  Autobiography 
I.    Prison   Slang. 


s 


LANG  is  a  conventional  tongue  with 
many  dialects  which  are  as  a  rule  un- 
intelligible to  outsiders.  Thus  a  costermonger 
mioht  not  understand  a  tinker,  nor  a  tinker  a 
costermonger,  though  both  spoke  slang.  It  is 
a  river,  sometimes  sparkling,  sometimes  foul, 
that  has  many  contributory  rivulets.  It  is 
never  fixed  as  a  tongue,  for  words  and  phrases 
come  and  go  with  marvellous  rapidity,  some 
being  absorbed  into  ordinary  English  speech 
(like  mob,  quiz,  and  even  the  word  slang  itself), 
and  so  ceasing  to  be  slang  ;  while  others  become 
first  obsolete  and  then  forgotten  by  the  capri- 
cious fashion  of  the  da\ .  If  we  were  to 
attempt  some  historical  account  of  the  origin 
of  slang  we  should  perhaps  lind  Shelta,  or 
tinkers  talk    its  oldest  known  form.      But  soon 


95 


96  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

there  arose  a  distinct  toncrue  of  the  vaorabond 
and  the  thief  to  which  the  name  of  Cant  was 
given.  The  chief  elements  in  both  of  these 
were  survivals  of  Celtic  or  Anorlo-Saxon  words. 
But  then  at  the  beoinnincr  of  the  sixteenth 
century  the  gypsies  arrived  with  a  definite 
language  of  their  own  of  Indo-Aryan,  or 
perhaps  Hindu,  origin.  They  united  for 
linguistic  purposes  with  the  wandering  tinkers 
and  the  wastrels  of  the  land,  and  from  their 
tongue,  Romany,  come  very  many  words  such 
as  row,  shindy,  pal,  slang,  mash  =  fascinate, 
and  tool  =  drive.  Then  England  began  to 
have  more  intercourse  with  the  nations  of  the 
continent  otherwise  than  by  war,  and  under 
Elizabeth  Italian  words  were  annexed,  some  of 
which  (like  fogle,  from  foglia  a  leaf,  for  hand- 
kerchief, and  caser,  from  casa  a  house,  donah  for 
woman)  remain  only  in  low  slang.  A  Dutch 
element  also  begins  to  appear  from  the  time  of 
William  of  Orange,  though  most  slang  words 
of  this  kind  are  the  later  introduction  from 
American  humourists  of  our  own  day.  The 
Bohemian  and  racketty  days  of  the  Restoration 
made  slang,  as  distinct  from  the  ancient  cant, 
fashionable,  and  a  very  large  number  of  slang 
words  now  in  use  date  from  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth   and    the    beginning    of   the   eighteenth 


PRISON   SLANG  97 

centurv^  Towards  the  end  of  the  eiirhteenth 
century  Yiddish,  the  tongue  of  German  Jews, 
began  to  be  known,  especially  in  East  London, 
as  a  source  of  slano-  terms  ;  such  as  oonnof  for 
thief,  shoful  (nr  counterfeit,  joskin  for  sleepy  or 
stupid  person.  The  nineteenth  century  has 
been  the  especial  contributor  of  Americanisms 
and  terms  derived  from  racing  on  the  turf,  and 
also  from  our  more  rapid  life  of  a  vast  stock  of 
abbreviations  such  as  pub,  ADC,  pops,  rad, 
spec,  tec,  vet,  and  bus.  Every  old  school  has 
also  its  own  peculiar  slang,  the  comparative 
and  historical  study  of  which  would  be  interest- 
ing, Winchester  perhaps  being  the  greatest 
conservator  or  manufacturer  of  peculiar  terms; 
and  each  trade,  especially  tailors  and  printers, 
has  its  own  words  and  phrases  unintelligible  to 
other  trades  and  very  little  caught  up  into  the 
o-eneral  lanQfuacje  of  slantr. 

Purely  of  native  manufacture,  however, 
and  entirely  artificial,  are  the  two  classes  of 
rhyming  and  back-slang  which  mingle  with 
cant  to  niake  a  whole.  By  the  former  any 
word  that  rhymes  with  the  one  you  mean  to  use 
is  put  in  its  place,  and  gradually  becomes 
accepted.  This  has  the  merit  of  unintelligi- 
bility  when  it  is  desired  not  to  let  chance 
passers    by   know   of   what    we    are    speaking, 


98  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

which  naturally  occurs  not  seldom  in  the  days 
of  detectives  and  plain-clothes  constables. 
Suppose  I  have  "touched"  {i.e.,  been  suc- 
cessful in  some  robbery),  and  feel  inclined  for 
some  relaxation  in  company  with  my  sweet- 
heart (or  one  of  them),  I  might  address  her 
thus  :  "  Come,  cows  and  kisses,  put  the  battle 
of  the  Nile  on  your  Barnet  Fair,  and  a  rogue 
and  villain  in  your  sky-rocket  ;  call  a  flounder 
and  dab  with  a  tidy  Charing  Cross,  and  we'll 
go  for  a  Bushey  Park  along  the  frog  and  toad 
into  the  live  eels."  This  would  apparently  be 
but  a  pendant  to  the  celebrated  bit  of  nonsense 
extemporised  by  Foote,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
to  a  master  or  mistress  of  rhyming  slang  it 
would  at  once  be  understood  as,  "  Come, 
missus,  put  a  tile  (hat)  on  your  hair  and  a 
shilhng  in  your  pocket ;  call  a  cab  with  a  tidy 
horse,  and  we'll  go  for  a  lark  along  the  road 
into  the  fields." 

And  the  second  class  of  manufactured  slang 
is  that  largely  patronised  by  costermongers. 
It  is  called  back-slang,  and  simply  consists  of 
spelling  (more  or  less  accurately)  words  back- 
wards thus,  "  Hi,  yob  !  kool  that  enif  elrig  with 
the  nael  ekom.  vSap  her  a  top  o'  reeb  and  a  tib 
of  occabot,"  is  only,  "  Hi.  boy  !  look  at  that  fine 
girl  with  the  lean  moke  (donkey).      Pass  her  a 


PRISON    SLANG  99 

pot  of  beer  and  a  bit  of  tobacco."  The  art  or 
merit  of  this  form  of  slang  consists  in  the 
rapicUty,  often  most  remarkable,  with  which 
such  words  can  be  reversed.  Thus  a  o-entle- 
man  wishing  to  test  the  skill  of  a  professor  of 
the  art  with  a  word  not  in  common  use  in  the 
market  asked  his  coster  friend  what  was  the 
back-slang  for  hippopotamus.  At  once  he 
answered,  "  Sumatopoppy,"  the  "y"  being 
euphoniously   put   for    "  ih." 

There  are  innumerable  names  for  the  clergy 
derived  from  their  "customary  suit  of  solemn 
black  "  or  their  avocation  ;  some  of  the  more 
common  being  "Black-coat,"  "Rook,"  or  "Black 
Fly,"  from  their  attire,  and  "  Finger-post," 
"Fire-escape,"  "Sky  Pilot,"  "Devil  Dodger," 
from  their  relative  teaching  concerning  future 
states  of  life.  "  Autem-bawler  "  and  "  Autem- 
jet "  are  probably  derived  from  the  Yiddish 
term  "a'  thoume"  for  church.  "Glue-pot" 
refers  to  them  as  joining  people  in  marriage. 
"Gospel  Shark"  and  "Holy  Joe"  are  more 
modern. 

Euphemisms  concerning  the  being  hung  are 
not  so  common  as  might  be  expected,  especi- 
ally when  one  remembers  the  more  frequent 
executions  of  earlier  centuries.  "  lO  die  in  a 
horse's  collar" — or  "night-cap" — refers  of  course 


loo  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

to  the  halter.  "  Died  in  the  fall  of  the  leaf"  to 
the  method  of  execution  by  the  sudden  removal 
of  the  platform  on  which  the  condemned  stand. 
"To  dance  on  nothing-"  recalls  the  days  of 
thicker  ropes  and  shorter  drops,  when  death 
ensued  more  slowly  by  strangulation  and  not 
as  now  instantaneously  by  rupture  of  the  spinal 
cord.  "Scragged"  is  a  common  term  derived 
from  scrag,  the  neck.  "Tower  Hill  vinegar" 
was  an  old  term  when  beheadings  were  common. 
A  man  whose  ancestor  had  been  hanoed  once 
expressed  the  fact  delicately  by  saying  that 
"He  died  suddenly  by  a  fall  from  a  platform 
in  the  City  while  listening  to  a  religious 
service."  "Abraham's  balsam"  or  "hempen 
elixir,"  mean  the  same  thing. 

For  running  away  from  creditors  or  the 
police  there  are  of  course  innumerable  terms 
derived  from  many  sources,  such  as  to  slip  it, 
to  skedaddle,  to  sling  one's  hook,  to  absquatu- 
late, to  guy,  to  pike,  to  speel,  to  tip  the  double, 
to  slope,  to  cut  one's  lucky,  to  mizzle,  to  bolt, 
to  cut  and  run,  to  vamoose,  to  slip  one's  cable, 
to  step  it,  to  leg  it,  to  cut  one's  stick,  to  ampu- 
tate one's  mahogany,  to  make  tracks,  to  hook 
it,  to  evaporate,  to  hop  the  twig. 


A   THIEP^'S   AUTOBIOGRAPHY  loi 

2.  A  Thief's  AutobioCxRaphy. 

The  general  use  of  this  very  composite 
language  may  best  be  gathered  from  the 
following  autobiography  written  for  me  by  a 
typical  East-End  Cockney  : — 

"  I    was    born    in    1853    at    Stamford    Hall, 
Middlesex.     My  parents    removed  from  there 
to  Stoke   Newington,   when    I    was  sent  to  an 
infant   school.       Some    time   afterwards    I    was 
taken  by  two  pals  (companions)  to  an  orchard 
to    cop    (steal)    some    fruit,    me    being    a    mug 
(inexperienced)  at  the  game.      This  got  to  my 
father's  ears  ;  when  I  went  home  he  set  about 
me  with  a  strap  until  he  was  tired.    He  thought 
that  was  not  enough,  but  tied  me  to  a  bedstead 
— you  may  be  sure  what  followed.     I  got  loose, 
tied    a    blanket    and    a    counterpane    together, 
fastened  it  to  the  bedstead,  and  let  myself  out 
of  the  window,  and  did  not  go  home  that  night, 
but  met  my  two  pals  and  dossed  (slept)  in   a 
haystack.      Early   next  morning  my   pals    said 
they    knew    where   they   could  get   some   toke 
(food),   and    took    me   to   a  terrace  ;     we    went 
down  the  dancers  (steps)  to  a  safe,  and  cleared 
it    out.      Two  or  three    days  after    I    met    my 
mother,  who  in  tears  begged  me  to  go  home, 
so    I    went    home.       My    parents    moved    to 


I02  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

Clapton  ;  when  they  sent  me  to  school  my  pals 
used  to  send  stiffs  (notes)  to  the  schoolmaster, 
saying  that  I  was  wanted  at  home  ;  but  instead 
of  that  we  used  to  go  and  smug  snowy  (steal 
linen),  that  was  hung  out  to  dry,  or  rob  the 
bakers'  barrows.  Things  went  from  bad  to 
worse,  so  I  was  obliged  to  leave  home  again. 
This  time  I  palled  with  some  older  hands  at 
che  game,  who  used  to  take  me  a-parlour- 
jumping  (robbing  rooms),  putting  me  in  where 
the  windows  were  open.  I  used  to  take  any- 
thing there  was  to  steal,  and  at  last  they  told 
me  all  about  wedge  (silver  plate),  how  I  should 
know  it  by  the  ramp  (hall-mark — rampant 
lion  ?)  ;  we  used  to  break  it  up  in  small  pieces 
and  sell  it  to  watch-makers,  and  afterwards  to 
a  fence  (buyer  of  stolen  goods)  down  the  Lane 
(Petticoat  Lane).  Two  or  three  times  a  week 
I  used  to  go  to  the  Brit.  (Britannia  Theatre)  in 
Hoxton,  or  the  Gaff  (penny  music  room)  in 
Shoreditch.  I  used  to  steal  anything  to  make 
money  to  go  to  these  places.  Some  nights  I 
used  to  sleep  at  my  pals'  houses,  sometimes  in 
a  shed,  where  there  was  a  fire  kept  burning 
night  and  day.  All  this  time  I  had  escaped 
the  hands  of  the  reelers  (police),  but  one  day 
I  was  taken  for  robbing  a  baker's  cart,  and  got 
twenty-one    days.     While    there    I    made  pals 


A   THIEF'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  103 

with  another  one  who  came  from  Shoreditch, 
and  promised  to  meet  him  when  we  got  out, 
which  I  did,  and  we  used  to  go  together,  and 
left  the  other  pals  at  Clapton. 

"  At  last  one  day  we  was  at  St.  John's 
Wood.  I  went  in  after  some  wedge  ;  while 
picking  some  up  off  the  table  I  frightened  a 
cat,  which  upset  a  lot  of  plates  when  jumping 
out  of  the  window.  So  I  was  taken  and  tried 
at  Marylebone  Police  Court,  and  sent  to 
Feltham  Industrial  School.  I  had  not  been 
there  for  a  month  before  I  planned  with 
another  boy  to  guy  (run  away),  and  so  we  did, 
but  was  stopped  at  Brentford  and  took  back 
to  the  school,  for  which  we  got  twelve  strokes 
with  the  birch.  I  thouorht  when  I  first  went 
there  that  I  knew  a  great  deal  about  thieving, 
but  I  found  there  was  some  there  that  knew 
more,  and  I  used  to  pal  in  with  those  who 
knew  the  most.  One  day  I  was  talking  with 
a  boy  ;  he  told  me  he  was  going  home  in  a 
day  or  so  ;  he  said  his  friends  was  going  to 
claim  him  out  because  he  was  more  than 
sixteen  years  old.  When  my  friends  came  to 
see  me  I  t(jld  them  they  could  claim  me  out, 
and  with  a  good  many  fair  promises  that  I 
would  lead  a  new  life  if  they  did  so,  they  got 
me   out  of  the   school.     When    I   got  home  I 


104  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

found  a  great  chanoe  in  my  father,  who  had 
taken  to  drink,  and  he  did  not  take  so  much 
notice  of  what  I  done  as  he  used.  I  went  on 
all  straight  the  first  few  moons  (months)  at 
costering.  One  day  there  was  a  fete  at  Clap- 
ton, and  I  was  coming  home  with  my  kipsy 
(basket)  ;  I  had  just  sold  all  my  goods  out  ;  I 
just  stopped  to  pipe  (see)  what  was  going  on 
when  a  reeler  came  up  to  me  and  rapped  (said), 

'  Now, ;  you  had  better  guy,  or  else  I  shall 

give  you  a  drag '  (three  months  in  prison).  So 
I  said,  'All  right,'  but  he  rapped,  '  It  is  not  all 
right  ;  I  don't  want  any  sauce  from  you,  or  else 
I  shall  set  about  you  (beat  you)  myself  So  I 
said,  '  What  for  ?  I  have  done  nothing  ;  do 
you  want  to  get  it  up  for  me  ? '  Then  he 
began  to  push  me  about,  so  I  said,  '  I  would 
not  go  at  all  if  he  put  his  dukes  (hands)  on  me. 
Then  he  rammed  my  nut  (head)  against  the 
wall,  and  shook  the  very  life  out  of  me.  This 
got  a  scuff  (crowd)  round  us,  and  the  people 
asked  him  what  he  was  knocking  me  about  for, 

so    he    said,    '  This  is   young ,    just    come 

home  from  a  schooling  '  (a  term  in  a  reforma- 
tory). So  he  did  not  touch  me  again  ;  so  I 
went  home,  turned  into  kip  (bed),  and  could 
not  get  up  for  two  or  three  days  because  he 
had  given  me   such  a    shaking,   him    being   a 


A  THIEF'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  105 

great,  powerful  man  and  me  only  a  little  fellow. 
I  still  went  on  all  straight  until  things  got  very- 
dear  at  the  market.      I  had  been  down  three  or 
four  days  running,  and  could   not  buy  anything 
to  earn   a   deaner    (shilling)    out    of.      So    one 
mornine  I  found   I   did  not  have  more  than  a 
caser  (5s.)  for  stock-pieces  (stock-money).      So 
I  thought  to  myself,  '  What  shall  I  do  ? '  I  said. 
'  I  know  what  I  will  do.      I  will  go  to   London 
Bridge  ratder  (railway)  and  take  a  deaner  ride 
and  go  a-wedge  hunting  '  (stealing  plate).    So  I 
took  a  ducat  (ticket)  for  Sutton,  in   Surrey,  and 
went  a-wedge    huntino-.      I    had    not    been    in 
Sutton    very    long    before    I    piped    a    slavey 
(servant)  conie  out  of  a  chat  (house),  so  when 
she    had    gone    a    little    way    up     the    double 
(turning),  I  pratted  (went)  in  the  house.     When 
inside,  I  could  not  see  any  wedge  lying  about 
in  the  kitchen,  so   I   screwed  my  nut   into  the 
wash-house,  and    I   piped  three  or  four  pair  of 
daisy-roots  (boots).      So  I   claimed  (stole)  them 
and  took  off  the  lid  of  my  kipsy  and  put  them 
inside,  put  a  cloth  over  them,  and  then  put  the 
lid    on    again,   put  the   kipsy   on    my   back    as 
though  it  was  empty,  and  guyed  to  the  rattler 
and   took    a  brief  (ticket)   to    London    Bridge, 
and  took  the  daisies   to  a  sheeny  (Jew)  down 
the     Gaff,    and    done     them     for    thirty    blow 


io6  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

(shilUngs).  The  next  day  I  took  the  rattler 
to  Forest  Hill,  and  touched  for  (succeeded  in 
getting)  some  wedge,  and  a  kipsy  full  of 
clobber  (clothes).  You  may  be  sure  this  gave 
me  a  little  pluck,  so  I  kept  on  at  the  old  game, 
only  with  this  difference,  that  I  got  more 
pieces  (money)  for  the  wedge.  I  got  three 
and  a  sprat  (3s.  6d.)  an  ounce.  But  afterwards 
I  got  three  and  nine,  and  then  four  blow.  I 
used  to  get  a  good  many  pieces  about  this 
time,  so  I  used  to  clobber  myself  up  and  go  to 
the  concert-rooms.  But  although  I  used  to  go 
to  these  places  I  never  used  to  drink  any  beer 
for  some  time  afterwards.  It  was  while  using 
one  of  these  places  I  first  met  a  sparring  bloke 
(pugilist),  who  taught  me  how  to  spar  and 
showed  me  the  way  to  put  my  dukes  up.  But 
after  a  time  I  gave  him  best  (left  him),  because 
he  used  to  want  to  bite  my  ear  (borrow)  too 
often.  It  was  while  I  was  with  him  that  I  got 
in  company  with  some  of  the  widest  (cleverest) 
people  in  London.  They  used  to  use  at 
(frequent)  a  pub  in  Shoreditch.  The  following 
people  used  to  go  in  there — toy-getters  (watch- 
stealers),  magsmen  (confidence-trick  men),  men 
at  the  mace  (sham  loan  offices),  broadsmen 
(card-sharpers),  peter-claimers  (box  stealers), 
busters  and  screwsmen  (burglars),  snide-pitchers 


A   THIEF'S   AUTOBIOGRAPHY  107 

(utterers  of  false  coin),  men  at  the  duff  (passing- 
false  jewellery),  welshers  (turf-swindlers),  and 
skittle  sharps.  Being  with  this  nice  mob 
(gang)  you  may  be  sure  what  I  learnt.  I  went 
out  at  the  oame  three  or  four  times  a  week, 
and  used  to  touch  almost  every  time.  I  went 
on  like  this  for  very  nearly  a  stretch  (year) 
without  being  smugged  (apprehended).  One 
night  I  was  with  the  mob  I  got  canon  (drunk), 
this  beine  the  first  time.  After  this  when  I 
went  to  the  concert-rooms  I  used  to  drink 
beer.  It  was  one  of  these  places  down  White- 
chapel  I  palled  in  with  a  trip,  and  stayed  with 
her  until  I  got  smugged.  One  day  I  was  at 
Blackheath,  I  got  very  near  canon,  and  when 
I  went  into  a  place  I  claimed  two  wedge 
spoons,  and  was  just  going  up  the  dancers,  a 
slavey  piped  the  spoons  sticking  out  of  my 
sky-rocket  (pocket),  so  I  got  smugged.  While 
at  the  station  they  asked  me  what  my  monarch 
(name)  was.  A  reeler  came  to  the  cell  and 
cross-kidded  (questioned)  me,  but  I  was  too 
wide  for  him.  I  was  tried  at  Greenwich. 
They  ask  the  reeler  if  I  was  known,  and  he 
said  no.  So  I  went  to  Maidstone  Stir  (prison) 
for  two  moon.  When  I  came  out  the  trip  I 
had  been  living  with  had  sold  the  home  and 
guyed  ;    that  did   not  trouble   me  much.      The 


io8  PRISONS   AND   PRISONERS 

only  thing  that  spurred  (annoyed)  me  was  me 
being  such  a  flat  to  buy  the  home.  The  mob 
got  me  up  a  break  (collection),  and  I  got 
between  five  and  six  foont  (sovereigns),  so  I 
did  not  go  out  at  the  game  for  about  a  moon. 

"  The  first  day  that  I  went  out  I  went  to 
Slough  and  touched  for  a  wedge  kipsy,  with 
1 20  ounces  of  wedge  in  it,  for  which  I  got 
nineteen  quid  (sovereigns).  Then  I  carried 
on  a  nice  game.  I  used  to  get  canon  every 
nieht.  I  done  thin-'s  now  which  I  should  have 
been  ashamed  to  do  before  I  took  to  that  ac- 
cursed drink.  It  was  now  that  I  got  acquainted 
with  the  use  of  twirls  (skeleton-keys). 

"  A  litde  time  after  this  I  fell  (was  taken  up) 
again  at  St.  Mary  Cray  for  being  found  at  the 
back  of  a  house,  and  got  two  moon  at  Bromley 
Petty  Sessions  as  a  rogue  and  vagabond  ;  and 
I  was  sent  to  Maidstone,  this  being  the  second 
time  within  a  stretch.  When  I  fell  this  time 
I  had  between  four  and  hve  quid  found  on 
me  but  they  gave  it  me  back,  so  I  was  landed 
(was  all  right)  this  time  without  them  getting 
me  up  a  lead  (a   collection). 

"  I  did  not  fall  again  for  a  stretch.  This 
time  I  got  two  moon  for  assaulting  the  reelers 
when  canon.  For  this  I  went  to  the  Steel 
(Bastile — Coldbath    Fields    Prison),    having    a 


A   THIEF'S   AUTOBIOGRAPHY  109 

new  suit  of  clobber  on  me  and  about  fifty 
blow  in  my  brii^h  (pocket).  When  I  came 
out  I  went  at  the  same  old  game.  One  day 
I  went  to  Croydon  and  touched  for  a  red  toy 
(gold  watch)  and  red  tackle  (gold  chain)  with  a 
large  locket.  So  I  took  the  rattler  home  at 
once.  When  I  got  into  vShoreditch  I  met  one 
or  two  of  the  mob,  who  said,  '  Hallo,  been  out 
to-day  ^  Did  you  touch  ?  '  So  I  said  '  Usher  ' 
(yes).  So  I  took  them  in  and  we  all  got 
canon.  When  I  went  to  the  fence  he  bested 
(cheated)  me  because  I  was  drunk,  and  only 
gave  me  ^8  los.  for  the  lot.  So  the  next  day 
I  went  to  him  and  asked  him  it  he  was  not 
going  to  grease  my  duke  (put  money  into  my 
hand).  So  he  said  '  No.'  Then  he  said,  T  will 
give  you  another  hali-a-quid  '  ;  and  said,  '  Do 
anybody,  but  mind  they  don't  do  you.'  So  I 
thought  to  myself,  '  All  ri^ht,  mv  lad  ;  vou  will 
find  me  as  '>ood  as  mv  master,'  and  left  him. 

"  Some  time  after  that  affair  witli  the  fence, 
one  of  the  mob  said  to  me,  '  I  have  got  a  |)lace 
cut  and  dried  ;  will  you  come  and  do  it  }  '  So  I 
said,  'Yes;  what  tools  will  you  want  .'^  '  And 
he  said,  'We  shall  want  some  twirls  and  the 
stick  (crowbar),  and  bring  a  neddie  (life  pre- 
server) with  you.'  And  he  said,  '  Now  don't 
stick   me   up   (disappoint)  ;    meet   me  at  six  tcj- 


no  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

night.'  At  six  I  was  at  the  meet  (trysting- 
place),  and  while  waiting  for  my  pal  I  had  my 
daisies  cleaned,  and  I  piped  the  fence  that 
bested  me  go  along  with  his  old  woman  (wife) 
and  his  two  kids  (children),  so  I  thought  of  his 
own  words,  '  Do  anybody,  but  mind  they  don't 
do  you.'  He  was  going  to  the  Surrey  Theatre ; 
so  when  my  pal  came  up  I  told  him  all  about 
it.  So  we  went  and  screwed  (broke  into)  his 
place,  and  got  thirty-two  quid  and  a  toy  and 
tackle,  which  he  had  bought  on  the  crook 
(dishonestly).  We  did  not  go  and  do  the 
other  place  after  that.  About  two  moon 
after  this  the  same  fence  fell  for  buying  two 
finns  (^5  notes),  for  which  he  got  a  stretch 
and  a  half. 

"A  litde  while  after  this  I  fell  at  Isleworth, 
for  being  found  in  a  conservatory  adjoining  a 
parlour,  and  got  remanded  to  the  Trench  (House 
of  Detention)  for  nine  days,  but  neither  Snuffy 
(Reeves,  the  identifier)  nor  Mac.  (Macintyre) 
knew  me,  so  I  o-ot  a  draar  and  was  sent  to  the 
Steel.  While  I  was  in  there  I  see  the  fence 
who  we  clone,  and  he  held  his  duke  at  me  as 
much  as  to  say,  '  I  would  give  you  something 
if  I  could  '  ;   but  I  only  laughed  at  him. 

"  I  was  out  about  seven  moon,  when  one 
night  a  pal  of  mine  was  half  drunk,   and  said 


A   THIEF'S   AUTOBIOGRAPHY  iii 

something  to  a  copper  (policeman)  which  he 
did  not  Hke,  so  he  hit  my  pal,  so  I  hit  him  in 
return.  So  we  both  set  about  him.  He  pulled 
out  his  staff  and  hit  me  on  the  nut,  and  cut  it 
open.  Then  two  or  three  more  coppers  came 
up  and  we  got  smugged  and  got  a  sixer  (six 
months)  each.  So  I  see  the  fence  again  in 
Stir. 

"  On  the  Boxing  Day  after  I  came  out  I  got 
stabbed  in  the  chest  by  a  pal  of  mine,  who 
had  done  a  schoolino-.  We  was  out  with  one 
another  all  the  day,  getting  drunk,  so  he  took 
a  liberty  with  me,  and  I  landed  him  one  on  the 
conk  (nose),  so  we  had  a  fight  and  he  put  the 
chive  (knife)  into  me.  This  made  me  sober,  so 
I  asked  him  what  made  him  such  a  coward. 
He  said,  '  I  meant  to  kill  you  ;  let  me  go  and 
kiss  my  wife  and  child,  and  then  smug  me.' 
But  I  did  not  do  that.  This  made  me  a  little 
thoughtful  ot  the  sort  of  life  I  was  carrying  on. 
I  thouijht,  '  What  if  I  should  have  been  killed 
then  ! '  But  this,  like  other  things,  soon  passeci 
away. 

"  After  the  [)lace  got  well  where  I  was 
chived,  me  and  another  screwed  a  place 
at  Stoke  Newinorton,  and  we  not  some 
squeeze  (silk)  dresses  and  two  sealskin 
jackets,  and  some  other  things.      We  tied  them 


112  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

in  a  bundle  and  got  on  a  tram.  It  appears 
they  knew  my  pal  ;  and  some  reelers  got  up 
too.  So  when  I  piped  them  pipe  the  bundle, 
I  put  my  dukes  on  the  rails  of  the  tram  and 
dropped  off,  and  guyed  down  a  double  before 
you  could  say  Jack  Robinson.  It  was  a  good 
job  I  did,  or  else  I  should  have  got  lagged 
(sent  to  penal  servitude)  and  my  pal,  too, 
because  I  had  the  James  (crowbar)  and  screws 
(skeleton  keys)  on  me.  My  pal  got  a  stretch 
and  a  half. 

"  A  day  or  two  after  this  I  met  the  fence 
who  I  done  ;  so  he  said  to  me,  '  We  have  met 
at  last.'  So  I  said,  'Well,  what  of  that?'  So 
he  said,  'What  did  you  want  to  do  me  for  .^ ' 
So  I  said,  '  You  must  remember  you  done  me, 
and  when  I  spoke  to  you  about  it,  you  said,  "Do 
anybody,  but  mind  they  don't  do  you."  '  That 
shut  him  up. 

"One  day  I  went  to  Lewisham  and  touched 
for  a  lot  of  wedge.  I  tore  up  my  madam 
(handkerchief)  and  tied  the  wedge  in  small 
packets,  and  put  them  into  my  pockets.  At 
Bishopsgate  I  left  my  kipsy  at  a  barber's 
shop,  where  I  always  left  it  when  not  in  use. 
I  was  going  through  Shoreditch  when  a  reeler 
from  Hackney,  who  knew  me  well,  came  up 
and  said,  '  I  am  going  to  run  the  rule  (search) 


A  THIEF'S   AUTOBIOGRAPHY  113 

over  you.'  You  could  have  knocked  me  down 
with  a  feather,  me  knowing-  what  I  had  about 
me.  Then  he  said,  'It's  only  my  joke.  Are  you 
going-  to  treat  me  .^ '  So  I  said,  'Yes,'  and 
began  to  be  very  saucy,  saying-  to  him,  '  What 
catch  would  it  be  if  you  was  to  turn  me  over  ?  ' 
So  I  took  him  into  a  pub  which  had  a  back 
way  out,  and  called  for  a  pint  of  stout,  and  told 
the  reeler  to  wait  a  minute.  He  did  not  know 
that  there  was  an  entrance  at  the  back  ;  so  I 
guyed  up  to  Hoxton  to  the  mob  and  told  them 
all  about  it.  Then  I  went  and  done  the  wedoe 
for  five-and-twenty  quid. 

"One  or  two  days  after  this  I  met  the  reeler 
at  Hackney,  and  he  said,  '  What  made  you 
guy  ? '  So  I  said  that  I  did  not  want  my  pals 
to  see  me  with  him.  So  he  said  it  was  all 
right.  Some  of  the  mob  knew  him  and  had 
greased  his  duke. 

"  What  I  am  about  to  relate  now  took  place 
within  the  last  four  or  five  moon  before  I  fell 
for  this  stretch  and  a  half.  One  day  I  went  to 
Surbiton.  I  see  a  reeler  oiving-  me  a  roasting 
(watching  me),  so  I  began  to  cuunt  my  pieces 
for  a  jolly  (pretence),  but  he  still  followed  me  ; 
so  at  last  I  rang  a  bell  and  waited  till  the  slavey 
came,  and  the  reeler  waited  till  I  came  out, 
and   then   said,  '  WHiat  are    you   hawking  of  .-^  ' 

y 


114  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

So  I  said,  '  I  am  not  hawking-  anything  ;  I  am 
buying  bottles.'  So  he  said,  '  I  thought  you 
were  hawkinij  without  a  hcence.'  As  soon  as 
he  got  round  a  double  I  guyed  away  to  Maiden, 
and  touched  for  two  wedge  teapots,  and  took 
the  rattler  to  Waterloo. 

"  One  day  I  took  the  rattler  from  Broad 
Street  to  Acton.  I  did  not  touch  there,  but 
worked  my  way  to  Shepherd's  Bush  ;  but  when 
I  got  there  I  found  it  too  hot  (dangerous), 
because  there  had  been  so  many  tykes  (dogs) 
poisoned,  that  there  was  a  reeler  at  almost  every 
double,  and  bills  posted  up  about  it.  So  I  went 
to  Uxbridge  Road  Station,  and  while  I  was 
w^aiting  for  the  rattler  I  took  a  religious  tract, 
and  on  it  was  written,  '  What  shall  it  profit  a 
man  if  he  gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  his 
own  soul  ? '  So  I  thought  to  myself,  '  What 
good  has  the  money  done  me  what  I  have  had? ' 
So  instead  of  getting  out  at  Brondesbury,  I 
rode  on  to  Broad  Street  and  paid  the  difference, 
and  went  home  and  did  not  go  out  for  about  a 
week. 

"  The  Sunday  following,  when  I  went  to 
Uxbridofe  Road,  I  went  down  a  lane  called 
Mount  Pleasant,  at  Clapton  ;  it  was  about  six 
o'clock.  Down  at  the  bottom  of  the  lane  you 
could  get  a  fine  view  of  Walthamstow;  so  while 


A   THIEF'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  115 

I  was  leaning  against  the  rails  I  felt  very 
miserable.  I  was  thinking  about  when  I  was 
at  Feltham.  I  thought  I  had  thrown  away  the 
only  chance  I  had  of  doing  better  ;  and  as  I 
stood  thinking,  the  bells  of  St.  Matthew's 
Church  began  to  play  a  hymn-tune  I  had  heard 
at  Feltham.  This  brought  tears  to  my  eyes  ; 
this  was  the  first  time  in  my  life  that  I  thought 
what  a  wretch  I  was — going  home  very  down- 
cast when  I  met  some  pals,  who  said,  '  Why  ! 
what  is  the  matter  ?  You  look  miserable  ! ' 
So  I  said,  T  don't  feel  very  well.'  So  they  said, 
'Are  you  coming  to  have  something  to  drink? 
— that  will  liven  you  up.'  So  I  went  in  with 
them,  and  began  to  drink  very  hard  to  drown 
my  thoughts. 

"  Monday  morning  I  felt  just  the  same  as  I 
always  did  ;  I  felt  ready  for  the  old  game 
again.  So  I  went  to  Hoxton,  and  some  of  the 
mob  said  to  me,  *  Why,  where  have  you  been 
the  last  week  or  so — we  thought  you  had  fell  ?  ' 
So  I  told  them  I  had  been  ill. 

"  I  went  out  the  next  day  to  Maidenhead, 
and  touched  for  some  wedge  and  a  poge 
(purse),  with  over  five  c\u'\d  in  it. 

"A  little  while  after  this  I  went  with  two 
pals  to  the  Palace  at  Muswcll  11  ill;  the  races 
were  on.      So   when   we   got   there,   there   w^as 


ii6  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

some  reelers  there  what  knew  me,  and  my  pals 
said,  '  You  had  better  get  away  from  us  ;  if  we 
touch,  you  will  take  your  whack  (share)  just  the 
same.'  So  I  went  and  laid  down  on  the  grass. 
While  lying  there,  I  piped  a  reeler  whom  I 
knew.  He  had  a  nark  (a  policeman's  spy)  with 
him.      So  I  went  and  looked  about  for  my  two 

pals,  and  told  them  to  look  out  for  F and 

his  nark.  About  an  hour  after  this  they  came 
to  me  and  woke  me  up,  and  they  said,  '  Come 
on,  we  have  had  a  lucky  touch  for  a  half- 
century  in  pap'  (^50  in  paper,  i.e.,  notes).  I 
thought  they  was  only  kidding  (deceiving)  at 
first,  so  they  said,  '  Let  us  guy  from  here,  and 
you  will  see  if  we  are  kidding  to  you.'  When 
we  got  into  the  rattler  they  showed  me  the 
pap;  yes,  there  it  was,  fifty  quid  in  double 
finns  (;^io  notes).  We  did  them  for  ^9  los. 
each  to  a  fence. 

"  I  took  the  rattler  one  day  to  Reigate,  and 
worked  my  way  to  Redhill.  So  I  went  into 
a  place  and  see  some  clobber  hanging  up,  so 
I  thought  to  myself  I  will  have  it,  and  take  the 
rattler  home  at  once  ;  it  will  pay  all  expenses. 
So  while  I  was  looking  about  I  piped  a  little 
peter  (parcel).  When  I  took  it  up  it  had  an 
address  on  it,  and  the  address  was  to  the 
vicarage,  so  I  came  out  and  asked  a  boy  if  the 


A  THIEF'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  117 

clergyman  lived  there,  and  he  said,  'Yes,'  but 
to   make  sure   of  it   I  went   back  aorain.      This 

o 

time  I  looked  at  the  clobber  more  closely,  and 
I  see  it  was  the  same  as  clergymen  wear,  so  I 
left  it  where  it  was.  I  always  made  it  a  rule 
never  to  rob  a  clergyman's  house  if  I  knew  one 
to  live  there.  I  could  have  robbed  several  in 
my  time,  but  I  would  not.  So  I  took  the 
rattler  to  Croydon,  and  touched  for  some 
wedge,  and  came  home. 

"  I  used  to  go  to  Henley-on-Thames  most 
every  year  when  the  rowing  matches  was  on, 
which  used  to  represent  Oxford  and  Cambridge, 
only  it  used  to  be  boys  instead  of  men.  The 
day  the  Prince  of  Wales  arrived  at  Portsmouth, 
when  he  came  home  from  India,  me  and  two 
pals  took  the  rattler  from  Waterloo  at  about 
half-past  six  in  the  morning.  When  we  got  to 
Portsmouth  we  found  it  was  very  hot,  there 
was  on  every  corner  of  a  street  bills  stuck  up, 
*  Beware  (jf  pickpockets,  male  and  female,' 
and  on  the  tramcars  as  well.  So  one  of  my 
pals  said,  '  There  is  a  reeler  over  there  which 
knows  me  ;  we  had  better  split  out '  (separate). 
Me  and  the  other  one  went  by  ourselves  ;  he  was 
very  tricky  (clever)  at  getting  a  poge  or  a  toy, 
but  he  would  not  t(juch  toys  because  we  was 
afraid    of  being   turned   over   (searched).      We 


ii8  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

done   very   well  at   poges  ;  we  found  after  we 
knocked  off  we  had  between  sixty  and  seventy 
quid  to  cut  up   (share),  but  our  other  pal  had 
fell,  and  was  kept  at  the  station  until  the  last 
rattler    went    to   London,   and   then  they  sent 
him  home  by  it.     One  day  after  this    I   asked 
a  screwsman  if  he  would  lend  me  some  screws, 
because  I    had  a  place  cut  and  dried.      But  he 
said,  '  If  I    lend  you  them  I  shall  want  to  stand 
in  '  (have  a  share)  ;  but    I   said,    '  I  can't  stand 
you  at  that  ;   I   will  grease   your  duke    if  you 
like  ; '  but  he  said  that  would  not  do  ;  so  I  said, 
'  We  will  work   together,  then,'  and    he  said, 
'Yes.'       So  we  went  and  done  the  place  for 
fifty-five  quid.      So  I  worked   with    him  until   I 
fell  for  this  stretch  and  a  half      He  was  very 
tricky  at  making  twirls,  and  used  to  supply  them 
all  with  tools.      Me  and  the  screwsman  went  to 
Gravesend,  and  I  found  a  dead  'un  (uninhabited 
house),  and  we   both  went   and   turned  it  over, 
and  got  things  out  of  it  which  fetched  us  forty- 
three  quid.    We  went  one  day  to  Erith  ;   I  went 
in   a  place,  and  when    I    opened   a  door   there 
was  a  great  tyke  lying  in  front  of  the  door,  so  I 
pulled  out  a  piece  of  pudding  (liver  prepared  to 
silence  dogs)  and  threw  it  to  him,  but  he  did 
not  move.      So   I    threw  a  piece  more,  and  it 
did  not  take  any  notice  ;  so  I  got  close  up  to  it 


A   THIEF'S   AUTOBIOGRAPHY  119 

and  I  found  it  was  a  dead  dog  been  stuffed.  So 
I  done  the  place  for  some  wedge  and  three 
overcoats — one  I  put  on  and  the  other  two  into 
my  kipsy.  We  went  to  Harpenden  Races  to 
see  if  we  could  find  some  dead  'uns  ;  we  went 
on  the  course.  While  we  was  there  we  saw  a 
scuff — it  was  a  flat  that  had  been  welshed,  so 
my  pal  said,  '  Pipe  his  spark  prop '  (diamond 
pin).  So  my  pal  said,  '  Front  me  (cover  me), 
and  I  will  do  him  for  it.'  So  he  pulled  out 
his  madam  and  done  him  for  it.  After  we  left 
the  course  we  found  a  dead  'un  and  got  a  peter 
(cash-box)  with  very  nearly  a  century  of  quids 
in  it.  Then  I  carried  on  a  nice  game  ;  what 
with  the  trips  and  the  drink  I  very  nearly  went 
balmy  (mad).  It  is  no  use  of  me  telling  you 
every  place  I  done,  or  else  you  will  think  I  am 
telling  you  the  same  things  over  again.  1  will 
now  tell  you  what  happened  the  day  before  I 
fell  for  this  stretch  and  a  half.  Me  and  the 
screwsman  went  to  Charlton.  From  there  we 
worked  our  way  to  Blackheath.  I  went  in  a 
place  and  touched  for  some  wedge,  which  we 
done  for  three  pounds  ten.  I  went  home  and 
wrung  myself  (changed  clothes),  and  met  some 
of  the  mob  and  got  very  near  drunk.  Next 
mornine  1  ^ot  up  abcnit  seven,  and  went  home 

O  O  I 

to    change    my    clobber    and   put    on    the    old 


I20  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

clobber  to  work  with  the  kipsy.  When  I  got 
home  my  mother  asked  me  if  I  was  not  a-going 
to  stop  to  have  some  breakfast  ?  So  I  said, 
'  No  ;  I  was  in  a  hurry.'  I  had  promised  to 
meet  the  screwsman,  and  did  not  want  to  stick 
him  up.  We  went  to  Willesden  and  found  a 
dead  'un,  so  I  came  out  and  asked  my  pal  to 
lend  me  the  James  and  some  twirls,  and  I  went 
and  turned  it  over.  I  could  not  find  any  wedge. 
I  found  a  poge  with  nineteen  shillings  in  it.  I 
turned  everything  over,  but  could  not  find  any- 
thing worth  having,  so  I  came  out  and  gave 
the  tools  to  my  pal  and  told  him.  So  he  said, 
'  Wasn't  there  any  clobber  ?  '  So  I  said,  '  Yes, 
there's  a  cartload.'  So  he  said,  'Go  and  o-et  a 
kipsy  full  of  it,  and  we  will  guy  home.'  So  I 
went  back,  and  as  I  was  going  down  the  garden 
the  gardener,  it  appears,  had  been  put  there  to 
watch  the  house,  s.o  he  said,  'What  do  you  want 
here  ?  '  So  I  said,  '  Where  do  you  speak  to  the 
servants  ?  '  So  he  said,  '  There  is  not  any  one 
at  home,  they  are  all  out.'  So  he  said,  '  What 
do  you  want  with  them  ?  '  So  I  said,  '  Do  you 
know  if  they  have  any  bottles  to  sell,  because 
the  servant  told  me  to  call  another  day  .'^  '  So 
he  said,  '  I  do  not  know  ;  you  had  better  call 
another  time.'  So  I  said,  'All  right,  and  good 
day  to  him.'      I  had  hardly  got  outside  when  he 


A   THIEF'S   AUTOBIOGRAPHY  121 

came  rushing  out  like  a  man  balmy,  and  said  to 
me,  '  You  must  come  back  with  me.'  So  I 
said,  '  All  rioht !  What  is  the  matter  ? '  So  when 
we  got  to  the  door,  he  said,  *  How  did  you 
open  this  door  ?  '  So  I  said,  '  My  good  fellow, 
you  are  mad  !  How  could  I  open  it?  '  So  he 
said,  '  It  was  not  open  half  an  hour  ago,  be- 
cause I  tried  it'  So  I  said,  'Is  that  any  reason 
why  I  should  have  opened  it?'  So  he  said, 
*  At  any  rate  you  will  have  to  come  to  the 
station  with  me.' 

"  The  station  was  not  a  stone's  throw  from 
the  place,  so  he  caught  hold  of  me,  so  I  gave 
a  twist  round,   and    brought    the  kipsy  in  his 
face,  and  gave  him  a  push    and    guyed.      He 
followed,  giving    me    hot    beef  (calling   '  Stop 
thief!  ').    My  pal  came  along,  and  I  said  to  him, 
'  Make  this  man  leave  me  alone  ;  he  is  knock- 
ing me  about,'  and  I  put  a  half- James  (half-sove- 
reign) in  his  hand  and  said,   '  Guy.'     As  I  was 
runninir  round  a  corner  there  was  a  reeler  talk- 
ing  to  a  postman,  and  I  rushed  by  him,   and  a 
little  while  after  the  gardener  came  up  and  told 
him  all  about  it.      So  he  set  after  me,  and  the 
postman  too,  all  the  three  giving  me  hot  beef 
This  set  other  people  after  mc,  and   I   got  run 
out.      So   I   got  run  in,  and  was  tried  at   Mary- 
lebone  and  remanded   for  a  week,  and  then  ful- 


122  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

lied  (fully  committed  for  trial),  and  got  this 
stretch  and  a  half.  Marylebone  is  the  court  I 
got  my  schooling  from." 

I  continue  the  autobiography.  During  this 
imprisonment  he  was  transferred  from  Coldbath 
Fields  to  Clerkenwell,  as  the  former  prison  was 
over  full.  The  hundred  that  came  to  us  in  a 
batch  had  apparently  been  selected,  most  of 
them,  as  those  whose  room  was  preferrable  to 
their  company,  and  a  choice  crew  of  Cockney 
criminals  most  of  them  were.  I  was  attracted 
to  him  partly  by  finding  in  him  a  sense  of 
humour,  which  is  rare  in  the  typical  criminal, 
and  partly  because  I  thought  he  was  as  hard  a 
nut  to  crack  as  could  be  found,  and  that  if  any- 
thing could  be  made  of  him  of  none  need  any 
one  despair.  On  his  discharge,  as  my  memory 
and  my  account  books  show,  there  were  many 
ups  and  downs,  alternations  of  sobriety  and 
intemperance,  of  hard  work  and  relapses  into 
crime,  and  for  several  years  I  had  to  stick 
closely  to  him  and  give  him  many  a  fresh  finan- 
cial start.  Close  by  me,  as  I  write,  is  the 
jemmy  he  gave  me  once,  remarking  with  a 
twinkle  in  his  eye  that  it  was  safer  in  my  cus- 
tody than  in  his,  and  other  donations  from  him, 
including  some  flash  notes  which  are  the  only 
fivers   I   at  present  possess,  enrich  my  criminal 


A   THIEF'S   AUTOBIOGRAPHY  123 

collection.      I  remember  once  walking- down  the 
Blackfriars  Road  with  him  and  noticing  an  old 
house  with  an   iron   arcading   round  the  front 
door.      "Ah,"  said  he,  with  a  view  to  the  bed- 
room window  above,  "neat,    but   very    'andy." 
Telling   this   story  to  some    artistic  friends  at 
Bedford  Park,  it   shortly  appeared   in  a  some- 
what altered  form  with  an  illustration  in  Punch. 
In  his  longest  interval  of  respectability  he  mar- 
ried a  young  factory  girl,  illiterate  but  virtuous, 
and  I  officiated  by  special  request  at   the  wed- 
ding, with  a  ticket  of  leave  brother  of  his  to  give 
away  the   bride,  and  often  afterwards  were  he 
and  she  my  guests.     One   day,  however,   when 
out  with  his  barrow,  he  met  some  old  pals  who 
persuaded  him  to  go  to  Sandown  Races.   There 
the  old  passion  for  betting  broke  out ;  he  spent 
all  his  stock  money,  drank  in  disgust  at  himself, 
and    relapsed   to   burgling,    and    was    speedily 
caught  and  sent  to  the  penal  servitude  for  which 
his  history  and  his  convictions  had  qualified  him. 
Uurino;  his  absence  I   had  occasion  to  write  of 
his  wife  as  one  of  my  heroines  in   these  words  : 
"  Though  young,  illiterate,  and  not  strong,   she 
is  keeping  herself  and  two  young  sons  by  un- 
wearied toil  at  box-making,  by  which  she  makes 
from  nine  to  eleven  shillings  a  week,  paying  three 
and  threepence   rent  for   an  unfurnished  room. 


124  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

It  always  cheers  and  strengthens  me  to  visit  her, 
and  to  note  her  fortitude  and  sweet  temper, 
while  her  fingers  are  busily  producing  the  gross 
of  boxes  for  which  she  will  get  perhaps  two 
shillings." 

Herhusbandmadeabad  prisoner  this  time, and 
got  but  little  remission.  On  discharge  he  thought 
a  new  land  would  give  him  the  only  chance 
of  a  fresh  start,  and  so  between  his  relations 
and  a  grant  from  the  Sheriffs'  Fund,  and  some- 
thing from  my  friends,  he  and  his  wife  and  boys 
were  sent  abroad.  Soon  came  a  letter  wanting- 
me  to  fetch  him  back.  "  Not  for  Joe,"  I  wrote, 
and  he  had  to  settle  down  to  work,  and  buckling 
to  he  soon  gained  the  name  of  "  the  EnoHsh 
hustler,"  from  the  energy  with  which  he  devoted 
himself  to  various  jobs.  From  time  to  time  I 
heard  from  him,  and  each  time  progress  was 
obvious.  Now  came  a  photograph  of  his  boys 
as  surpliced  choristers,  and  later  a  parish  maga- 
zine with  the  names  of  himself  and  his  wife  in 
the  list  of  communicants,  and  eventually  the 
typical  criminal,  the  burden  to  the  taxes,  became 
a  trusted  insurance  agent  and  a  respected 
citizen;  and  finally  in  1897  I  received  a  cutting 
from  a  trans-oceanic  paper  which  described  his 
sudden  death  from  apoplexy.  It  said  :  "  Mr. 
X.  was  forty-three  years  of  age.      He  was  born 


A   THIEF'S   AUTOBIOGRAPHY  125 

in  England,  and  came  to  this  country  with  his 
wife  and  two  small  children  eight  years  ago. 
For  the  greater  part  of  this  time  Mr.  X.  has 
resided  in  this  city,  and  has  acted  for  the  Y. 
Life-  Insurance  Company.  He  had  a  large 
acquaintance  in  business  and  social  circles,  and 
was  highly  respected  and  generally  esteemed. 
The  funeral  will  be  held  from  All  Saints'  Church 
on  Sunday.  The  members  of  the  Z.  Union 
Lodge,  LO.O.F.,  of  which  the  deceased  was  a 
popular  member,  will  attend  in  a  body."  How 
commonplace  it  sounds  to  all  but  me  !  But  the 
commonplace  often  veils  the  marvellous  and  the 
heroic.  Perseverance  in  effort ;  trusting  in 
those  who  despair  of  themselves  ;  the  repudia- 
tion in  this  instance,  I  fear,  of  the  most  definite 
C.O.S.  principles  ;  and  the  result  is  such  as  to 
encourao^e  others  who  are  wrestling  with  tough 
customers,  and  certainly  to  fill  me  with  thank- 
fulness for  the  issue  of  what  may  be  described 
as  my  Ten  Years'  War. 

This  is  a  case  of  cure,  but  of  course  our  chief 
efforts  should  be  directed  to  prevention,  and 
much  every  way  is  the  gain  when  the  supplies 
of  crime  can  be  cut  oft  by  child-saving  work. 


CHAPTER   VI 

I.  Children     in      Prison.— 2.  Not     "Whether"     but 
"  Why." — 3.  Sunday  School   Influence. 

I.   Children  in  Prison. 

PRISON  chaplains  nowadays  see  little  of 
children,  but  in  my  report  of  1878  I 
wrote:  "The  chaplain,  in  noticing  that  1 10 
prisoners  have  been  under  the  age  of  twelve 
years,  must  express  his  great  regret  that  no  defi- 
nite rules  exist  with  regard  to  the  safe  custody  of 
children  accused  of  or  involved  in  crime.  .  .  . 
Obviously  nothing  can  be  said  in  favour  of  a 
boy  of  six  years  being  remanded  here  and  kept 
in  silent  and  solitary  confinement  on  a  charge 
of  vagrancy,  nor  for  a  girl  of  seven  being  sent 
here  for  running  an  errand  for  her  mother  with 
a  bad  fourpenny  bit  ;  both  of  which  instances 
have  occurred  here  lately."  I  kept  pegging 
away  at  this,  though  prison  chaplains'  reports 
did   not  then   even  advance   to   the  honour  of 


126 


CHILDREN    IN    PRISON  127 

burial  in  a  Blue  Book,  and  I  remember  a  prison 
inspector  seeing  one  of  my  first  reports  and 
saying,  "  It  is  very  good  of  you  to  take  all  this 
trouble,  but  you  don't  suppose  any  one  will 
read  it."  Then  happily  came  at  last  the  order 
of  the  Home  Secretary  (Sir  \V.  Harcourt) 
whereby  such  magisterial  iniquity  was  pre- 
vented, and  governors  had  immediately  to 
inform  the  Home  Office  if  any  child  under  the 
age  of  twelve  was  received.  Therefore,  in  my 
last  report  (for  1885)  I  had  only  to  refer  to  the 
subject  thus  :  "  I  should  like  to  put  on  record 
a  suo'LTestion  that  the  abolition  of  this  prison 
might  well  be  made  the  occasion  of  the 
establishment  of  a  special  House  of  Detention, 
after  the  nature  of  a  truant  school,  to  which  all 
boys  and  girls  under  sixteen  might  be  remanded, 
instead  of  their  being  introduced  to  a  prison, 
and  that  frequently  without  having  committed 
any  real  crime.  People  hardly  believe  me 
when  I  say  that  I  have  been  called  upon  to 
minister  to  infants  of  both  sexes  aged  six  and 
seven.  This  is  happily  now  impossible,  but 
the  time  is  ncjt  f^u*  distant  when  people  will 
find  it  equally  hard  to  believe  that  children  in 
1885  were  sent  here  simply  for  being  homeless 
and  friendless,  and  as  such  committing  the 
'  crime '  of  sleeping    out.       Besides   the    more 


128  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

obvious  objections,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
comparative  luxury  of  the  prison  removes  from 
the  street-arab  nearly  all  the  deterrent  force  the 
idea  of  a  prison  had  before,  and  his  return  as  a 
real  criminal  is  more  likely.  When  our  School 
Board  can  set  up  its  truant  school  with  power 
of  detention,  the  cry  of  noii  possumiLS  can 
hardly  be  raised.  You  (the  Prison  Com- 
missioners) speak  in  your  eighth  report  of  the 
'  manifest  injustice  of  sending  to  prison  people 
whose  mental  condition  is  doubtful.'  But 
these  have  committed  crimes,  and  are  frequently 
dangerous  to  the  community.  A  fortiori, 
therefore,  it  is  manifestly  unjust  to  remand 
children  whose  only  '  crime  '  is  homelessness." 
The  decrease  in  the  number  of  children  under 
twelve  committed  to  prison  will  be  shown  by 
the  followinof  table  : — 

In  1872  there  were  1562  ;  in  1882  there  were  415 

„  1873  „  1482     „    1883  „  387 

„  1874  „  1470     „    1884  „  270 

„  1875  „  1084     „    1885  „  250 

,,  1876  ,,  998     ,,    1886  „  261 

„  1877  ,,  1065     „    1887  „  226 

But  still  there  is  need  to  remember  that  home- 
lessness is  not  a  crime,  and  that  there  may  be 
no  moral  wrono-  nor  harm  to  the  State  in  what 
is  technically  and  legally  a  crime.      Neither  our 


CHILDREN    IN    PRISON  129 

prisons,  nor  even  our  workhouses,  are  the  places 
in  which  temporary  shelter  is  to  be  afforded  for 
those  whom  we  want  to  befriend  and  rescue  as 
children.     One  day  I  noted  the  cases  of  five  of 
my  lambs  who  were  juvenile  offenders  certainly, 
else  they  could  not  have  been  remanded.      But 
what   was   their   offence  ?     The  card   on   their 
cell    doors    informs    us    that    they    have     been 
"  sleeping  out" — an  offence  not  unknown  even 
to    the    heads    of  well-regulated    families,    and 
frequently  committed   by  deputations  from  the 
Waifs  and   Strays   Society.      Not  that   I  would 
proclaim     them     without     fault,     for     in     most 
instances   they   have  started   on   the  prodigal's 
path  by  running  away  from  home,  albeit  with- 
out receiving  the  portion   that  should  come  to 
them,  and  with  a  memory,  which   was  probably 
not    his,    of  a   frequent  acquaintance  with   the 
buckle  end  of  the  parental  strap.      Having  thus 
launched  themselves  upon  the  streets  they  find 
that  if  they  be  of  gold,  that  metal  is  not  edible, 
nor    to    be    detached     from     the     asphalte    in 
sufficient  amount  to  ensure  even  a  "  fourpenny 
doss  "  each   nitiht.      Therefore    thev  must   find 
a  restinij-place  where  thev  can.      Five   boys   I 
one    day   interrogated   as    to   their    usual    l^ecl- 
rooms  or  beddin";  during  the  weeks  or  months 
that  they  have  been  tentless  arabs.      The  first 


10 


I30  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

has  slept  always  on  the  ground,  but,  with  some 
instinctive  idea  of  the  existence  of  rheumatism, 
has  begged  from  the  aristocracy  of  his  class, 
the  capitalists  who  sing  the  evening  hymn  of 
"  Speshul  Edishun  !  "  a  few  contents  bills,  more 
or  less  wind-torn  and  gutter-stained,  and, 
spreading  these  beneath  him,  has  dreamed  on 
EcJio  s  and  been  cushioned  on  a  Globe.  The 
next  has  crept  nightly  under  the  tarpaulins 
which,  in  the  Borough  Market,  cover  the 
mounds  of  cabbages  or  sacks  of  potatoes,  ex- 
pecting, if  in  the  luxurious  couch  he  envelopes 
himself  and  cannot  anticipate  the  coming  of  the 
early  salesman,  to  be  roused  by  a  cuff  and  an 
oath,  with  possibly  another  as  a  second  course 
at  breakfast,  by  way  of  kindly  dismissal  from 
the  policeman  to  whom  he  is  introduced. 
Ponder  on  this,  ye  who  grumble  at  the  incipient 
felting  of  your  horsehair  or  tlock  mattress,  and 
rather  admire  the  refinement  of  the  princess 
who  detected  the  inequality  of  the  roseleaf 
beneath  her  bed  of  eiderdown  !  "  Blessinors," 
said  Sancho  Panza,  "  on  the  man  who  invented 
sleep."  A  ciouble  blessing  surely  attends  the 
capacity  to  slumber  on  sacks  of  Irish  lumpers 
or  piles  of  the  roseate  but  rotund  pickling 
cabbage.  The  third  has  usually  found  free 
quarters  on  the  staircases  of  houses  let  out  in 


CHILDREN    IN    PRISON  131 

tenements,  where,  from  the  late  or  early  habits 
of  the  lodtrers,  the  street  door  is  open  all  night, 
a  course  certainly  productiv^e  of  moral  harm,  as 
an  estimable  lady  worker  has  frequently  pointed 
out.  How  often  such  sleepers  are  stumbled 
over  by  those  who  return  home  only  because 
the  gin  palaces  are  cl(jsed,  or  kicked  more  or 
less  accidentally  downstairs  by  those  who 
grope  their  way  out  to  their  early  work  in  the 
markets  only  those  who  have  tried  can  tell. 
The  next  lad,  with  a  companion,  has  for  long 
occupied  a  four-poster  in  the  shape  of  a  van 
left  under  a  railway  arch,  and  if  only  a  few 
sacks  can  be  discovered  for  a  cjuilt,  what  more 
could  be  desired  ?  The  fiftli  had  run  away 
from  home,  as  his  father  would  probably  say, 
or  been  turned  out  for  not  getting  work,  as  he 
himself  said,  some  three  weeks  ago  ;  had  made 
only  threepence  or  fourpence  a  day  by  selling 
lights, and  after  spendingall  this  in  a  Lockhart's 
cocoa-room  had  repaired  each  night  to  "  where 
you  stand  up  to  look  over  "-^in  other  words,  to 
the  seats  on  ]^)lacktriars  Bridge,  whence,  as  he 
said,  "  the  p'lice  doesn't  always  move  you  on." 
No  .Sybarite  couch — that  is  before  him  in  the 
hammock  of  a  training-ship — a  pillow  destitute 
of  padding  even  more  than  his  slender  and 
skinny  limbs,   though    perhaps  he  found  some 


132  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

consolation  in  the  undoubtedly  thorough 
ventilation  of  his  bedroom,  in  the  height  of  its 
roof,  and  the  abundance  of  night  porters 
always  in  attendance — to  disregard  the  mute 
appeal  of  such  a  bundle  of  rags  and  bones. 
But  when  I  meet  with  these  boys  in  prison  I 
cannot  but  wish  that  their  introduction  to  a 
criminal  institution  did  not  mean  comfort  and 
even  luxury,  and  thus  lose  all  its  deterrent 
force.  Kept  somewhere  of  course  they  must 
be  while  philanthropy,  whether  of  the  State  or 
of  a  society,  or  of  individuals,  has  time  to 
examine  their  stories  and  provide  for  their 
future  benefit  ;  but  need  that  place  be  a  prison, 
when  something  after  the  nature  of  a  truant 
school  would  answer  all  purposes,  and  preserve 
them  from  the  memory  of  prison  as  a  comfort- 
able place  ? 

2.   Not  "  WiiETFiioR "  BUT  "Why." 

"God  loves  adverbs,"  says  the  judicious 
Hooker,  merely  reminding  us  that  a  word 
or  action  should  be  judged  rather  by  its 
motives  than  its  results.  A  penny  given  with 
sympathy,  twopence  as  the  result  of  self-denial, 
is  worth  far  more  than  the  lar^e  sum  oiv^n 
from  ostentation,  or  rivalrv,  or  to  silence  im- 
portunity.      A  nian  may  come  to  a  violent  end 


NOT    "WHETHER"   BUT  "WHY"  133 

by  wanton  murder,  or  by  homicide  that  may  be 
justifiable  and  even  a  virtuous  act.  A  corpse 
is  the  result  in  either  case,  but  justice  regards 
chiefly  the  intention  that  prompted  the  blow. 
So  in  many  and  varied  cases  have  we  to  ask 
not  whether  something-  is  done,  but  why,  and 
how,  and  with  what  result  ? 

This  preface  leads  me  to  remark  that  it  is  a 
matter  of  frequent  occurrence  for  me  to  receive 
letters  asking-  what  can  be  done  with  or  for  a 
lad  or  lass,  a  youni;"  man  or  young'  woman,  who 
has  been  dishonest.  My  experiences  ol  oxer 
one  hundred  thousand  separate  cases  in  ten 
years'  work  in  Clerkenwell  Prison  has  neces- 
sarily resulted  in  a  certain  amount  ol  kiiovv- 
ledore  of  what  to  do,  and  how  to  do  it, 
when  an  act,  ov  even  habit,  of  dishonesty  has 
been  discovered  ;  and  ni)  usual  hrst  answer  to 
correspondents  whogixe  voluminous  and  some- 
times unnecessary  details  oi  the  act  that  seems 
to  blioht  a  character  and  |)ros|)('Cts  is,  "  Never 
mind  whether  ;  can  )'ou  tell  me  why  he  or  she 
stole  .'^  "  I'ind  out  the  cause,  lalxtur  to  remove, 
cure,  or  prevent  that,  and  then  a  repetition  ot 
the  act  is  less  likely. 

Let  me  give  a  few  cases  that  are  t\j)iiiil. 
A.B.,  a  girl  brought  up  in  a  district  school  or 
large  orphanage,  pilfers  in  her  first  place. 


134  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

What?  Oh,  little  thincrs — bits  of  ribbon  a 
pair  of  scissors,  Christmas  cards.  I  am  afraid 
she  is  a  confirmed  pilferer — cannot  keep  her 
hands  from  any  unconsidered  trifle  on  which 
her  eyes  fall.  What  does  she  do  with  them  ? 
Only  makes  a  magpie's  hoard  in  her  box. 
Then  this  is  nature  rather  than  vice,  and  the 
ofuiltiness  is  to  be  souoht  not  in  the  o-irl  so 
much  as  in  the  system  under  which  she  was 
reared.  She  always  had  the  innate  and  proper 
love  of  having  personal  property  ;  the  enforced 
communism  of  the  child-barrack  has  noxiously 
repressed  it.  Her  dress  belonged  to  the  school 
and  not  to  "  No.  3,"  as  she  was  called  ;  the 
few  toys  were  common  property  ;  the  odds 
and  ends  that  seemed  impedimenta  or  litter  to 
us,  but  treasures,  and  even  companions,  to  the 
child,  were  unknown  in  her  institutionalised 
life  ;  therefore,  when  she  goes  out  into  service, 
suppressed  nature  breaks  out — the  girl  wants 
gifts  rather  than  punishment.  Had  this  been 
considered  in  time,  a  few  trifles,  valueless  to  the 
mistress,  would  have  been  precious  to  the 
servant  when  given  as  "  your  very  own,"  and 
no  pilfering  would  have  occurred. 

Or  CD.,  with  the  same  history,  acts  in  the 
same  way.  What  did  she  do  with  her  loot  ? 
Bedecked  herself,  or  spent  the  stolen  coppers 


NOT   "WHETHER"    BUT   "WHY"         135 

in  a  brooch.  Exactly  ;  here  again  is  nature, 
not  sin.  She  has  hitherto  been  uniformed 
and  even  her  outfit  for  service  was  identical 
with  that  she  saw  every  other  "  inmate  " 
receive.  But  God  paints  no  replicas,  nor  makes 
two  blades  of  grass  alike,  and  gives  all  creation 
the  power  to  differentiate  and  beautify  itself. 
The  girl's  repressed  instincts  were  for  some 
adornment,  and  not  to  be  like  every  one  else. 
Why  did  not  the  mistress  anticipate  this,  and 
teach  her  young  sister  in  the  kitchen  the  right 
measure  and  manner  of  adornment  and  pro- 
ducing individuality  by  a  touch  or  two? 

E.  F.,  from  the  same  school,  acts  similarly. 
What  became  of  her  purloinings  ^  She  gave 
them  away  to  the  servant  next  door,  or  to  a 
schoolfellow  she  met  on  Sunday  night.  Here 
arain  is  more  of  virtue  than  of  vice.  The  dis- 
tributive  faculty  exists  in  all,  and  usually  makes 
more  for  goodness  than  the  acquisitive,  and 
requires  more  encouragement.  Hitherto  it  has 
had  httle  or  even  no  opportunii)-  for  its  being 
exercised  ;  and  while  one  cannot  defend  the 
method  by  which  means  for  its  gratification  arc. 
in  this  instance,  accjuircd,  yet  let  us  not  see  in 
the  action  unmixed  evil. 

G.  H.  steals  money  and  sj)liu1s  ii  in  a  gorge 
ol    sweets — a  very  common  case,  as  all   know 


136  PRISONS   AND  PRISONERS 

who  have  had  prison-work  to  do,  and  even 
have  noted  the  ways  of  growing  lads  and  lasses. 
Gluttony  added  to  theft !  exclaim  some.  True, 
but  yet  the  physical  desire  for  sugar  is  natural, 
inevitable,  and  right  in  the  young.  Has  it  been 
borne  in  mind  in  the  dietary  and  indulgences 
(if  any)  of  the  institution  from  which  the  culprit 
has  lately  come  ?  Very  frequently  the  rules, 
framed  by  adults,  have  lost  sight  of  this  point, 
and  no  due  provision  has  been  made  for  the 
want  that  the  manaoers  have  outgrown  and 
forgotten.  Ex-prisoners  frequently  injure  them- 
selves by  a  hasty  and  unchecked  rush  to  beef- 
steaks on  the  day  of  discharge  from  a  scant 
and  semi-veo'etarian  diet.  I  have  even  known 
a  death  to  occur  from  this  cause.  We  grieve, 
but  hardly  wonder,  and  cannot  absolutely  blame. 
So,  too,  the  apparently  excessive  and  over- 
mastering desire  for  lollipops  which  leads  to 
theft  is  sometimes  attributable  to  suppressed  and 
injured  nature  ;  and  the  swing  of  the  pendulum 
to  the  opposite  extreme  when  set  free  cannot 
be  unreservedly  blamed  by  those  who  have 
hitherto  tied  it  up  too  high  instead  of  seeing 
that  it  rests  upon  its  equipose.  When  the 
happ)'  mean  has  not  been  provided  for,  excess 
may  be  expected  when  opportunity  occurs — a 
maxim  that  is  of  wide  application,  and  relates 


NOT   "WHETHER"    BUT   "WHY"  137 

to    many    things    of    physical,    social,    political, 
moral,  and  religious  importance. 

I.  J.  is  an  office  lad  who  has  taken  his  em- 
ployer's stamps.  Why  ?  I  ask.  Don't  know. 
Then  find  out,  and  write  again.  I  now  learn 
that  he  had  been  led  into  betting,  and  was 
pressed,  almost  forced,  to  have  his  half-crown 
in  the  office  Derby  sweep  to  which  all,  from 
the  indignant  and  prosecuting  employer  down- 
wards, contributed.  Is  the  lad's  guilt,  then, 
entirely  his  own  ?  Blame  him,  but  blame  him 
not  alone  ;  blame  him,  but  give  him  something 
else  as  well  as  blame  :  teach  him,  as  probably 
no  one  has  hitherto  done,  the  essential  im- 
morality of  betting  ;  make  him  see  the  shame 
of  receiving  money  for  which  he  has  not  given 
money's  worth  ;  make  him  despise  the  un- 
fraternal  spirit  and  cunning  on  and  by  which 
betting  thrives;  show  him  1)\'  instances  how 
rapidly  the  passion  grows,  and  what  a  consum- 
ing fire  it  becomes  ;  and  then,  remox  iiig  the 
cause,  you  w  ill  not  have  cause  again  to  lament 
the  effect. 

Here  are  four  other  cases  that  seem  to 
you  pure  thefts,  alike  and  inexcusable.  But 
inquiry  reveals  that  in  one  case,  hysteria  ; 
in  another,  the  desire  to  help  a  needy  friend  ; 
a  third,   intemperance  ;    in    the   last,   the   over- 


138  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

mastering  of  a  weak  nature  by  a  stronger  and 
criminal  one,  is  the  real  cause,  to  be  met  in  the 
right  way  and  removed. 

These  are  but  simple  cases,  and  under  each 
head  I  could  give  many  concrete  instances  that 
I  have  known  in  prison  and  without.  Is  it  not 
well  for  people  to  consider  the  "  why "  as 
well  as  "  whether,"  and  to  advance  their  moral 
growth  by  being  at  once  more  ready  to  make 
excuses  for  others  and  less  ready  to  make 
excuses  for  themselves  '^  Actions  that  seem 
quite  inexcusable  are  not  always  such,  when 
patiently  and  even  sympathetically  we  try  to 
discover  motives  and  causes  of  action.  I  once 
had  a  girl  from  an  institution  under  my  care  in 
prison,  for  the  crime  of  arson.  She  had  set 
fire  to  the  home  that  had  sheltered  her.  Base 
ingratitude  !  a  serious  crime  !  the  effects  of  evil 
parentage  coming  out  !  many,  doubtless  ex- 
claimed. Softly,  censorious  regarders  of  the 
fact  alone.  "Why  did  you  do  it,  child.?"  I 
asked.  "  Please,  sir,  it  was  the  love  of  praise." 
(In  prison  one  is  rarely  surprised  at  anything, 
for  cloaks  and  masks  are  less  worn  than  in  the 
respectable  and  undetected  world  outside.) 
"Yes,  child,"  I  said,  "but  I  don't  quite  under- 
stand what  you  mean."  There  came  out  what 
was  undoubtedly  the   truth.      There   had  been 


SUNDAY   SCHOOL    INFLUENCE  139 

an  incipient  fire  in  the  institution  which  this 
girl  had  discovered  and  put  out.  She  gained 
much  praise,  which  was  so  sweet  (apparently, 
I  fear,  sweets  had  not  their  proper  place  in  the 
moral  dietary  of  the  place)  that  to  gain  some 
more  she  shortly  after  kindled  a  fire  herself.  I 
told  this  incident,  a  few  days  after  it  happened, 
to  my  friend  Mr.  Moncure  Conway,  and  he  was 
moved  to  the  verge  of  tears  by  its  pathos  and 
its  significance.  He,  at  any  rate,  thought  not 
that  blame  and  punishment  were  the  sole 
medicines  for  the  crime. 

3.   Sunday  School  Influence. 

A  orreat  deal  mioht  be  said  as  to  the  in- 
fluence  of  Sunday  Schools  upon  children  who, 
from  their  parentage  or  early  surroundings, 
are  likely  to  swell  the  ranks  of  our  home 
heathen.  Into  this  many-sided  and  thorny 
subject  I  would  not  enter  here  except  to  say 
that  certainly  things  would  be  worse  if  there 
were  no  Sunday  Schcjols,  and  not  nearly  so  bad 
if  Sunday  Schools  were  better.  But  it  may  be 
provocative  of  thought  to  record  what  I  found 
when  I  took  fifty  boys  as  they  came,  their  ages 
varying  from  nine  and  a  half  to  sixteen. 

I.  All  but  two  had  been  Sunday-school 
scholars.       Not     that     this     means     much,    for 


I40  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

"Go  to  Sunday  School"  often  means  but  "Get 
out  of  my  way." 

2.  Of  these  twenty-nine  had  been  in  Church 
schools,  fourteen  in  chapel  schools,  four  in 
both,  and  one  didn't  know  which  it  was. 

3.  They  had  been  at  Sunday  School  for  terms 
varying-  from  one  month  to  nine  years,  with  an 
average  of  three  and  a  half  years. 

4.  Forty-two  claimed  to  have  attended 
regularly,   six  admitted  irregularity, 

5.  Seventeen  had  been  once,  twenty-six 
twice,  and  five  thrice  on  Sunday.  Evening 
Sunday  School  is  a  great  advantage  in  popu- 
lous towns  ;  the  devil  always  has  one  open  at 
the  thievish  corner  of  the  street,  and  fas  est  ab 
hostc  doccri. 

6.  Twenty-one  had  kept  to  the  same  school, 
twenty  had  been  to  two,  and  seven  to  three 
schools.  I  presume  they  would  hardly  include 
or  acknowledge  temporary  visits  to  other 
schools  before  the  treats  were  on. 

7.  Twenty  were  still  attending  Sunday 
School,  twenty-eight  had  left. 

8.  Thirty-one  "  didn't  know  why  "  they  had 
left  (I  did  though)  ;  nine  had  to  work  on 
Sundays  ;  two  considered  themselves  too  old 
(a  common  cause  of  loss  unless  the  upper 
classes  are  called  Bible  classes  and  held  apart 


SUNDAY  SCHOOL   INFLUENCE  141 

from  the  yountrer  catechumens)  ;  two  had  no 
clothes  ;  two  didn't  Hke  it  (no  wonder,  if  they 
were  in  certain  schools  I  could  name)  ;  one  left 
because  his  teacher  did  (the  "  1-am-ot-Cephas  " 
difficulty  must  be  met  in  schools  as  well  as  in 
conf^regations)  ;  and  one  had  to  work  so  late 
on  Saturday,  poor  brat,  that  he  was  unfit  for 
exertion  on  Sunday. 

9.  Twenty-nine  had  had  prizes,  chiefly  for 
regularity  of  attendance. 

10.  Only  twenty-nine  of  the  fifty  could  say 
the  Lord's  Prayer  perfectly. 

11.  Only  thirty-one  could  tell  me  how  many 
Commandments  there  were. 

12.  Seven  could  repeat  the  Sixth  and  Ninth 
Commandments  ;  forty  knew  neither. 

13.  Thirteen  could,  and  thirty-seven  could 
not,  repeat  the  Creed. 

14.  vSeven  were  entirely  ignorant  of  how- 
Christ  died — they  had  heard  His  name,  and 
that  was  all. 

I  5.  Twenty-one  could  tell  me  nothing  of  what 
happened  to  llim  after  fiis  death. 

16.  Six  had  no  idea  where  He  was  now. 

17.  To  the  ([uestion,  "What  is  He  doing 
now?"  eio-hteen  could  give  a  fairlv  good 
answer,  three  had  some  idea,  but  twentv-nine 


142  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

knew  nothing  about  it,  as  the  popular  theology 
which  blights  us  rarely  goes  beyond  Calvary. 

The  saddest  thing  in  this  respect  was  to  find 
that  the  prevalent  idea  of  the  present  occupa- 
tion of  Christ  was  that  He  was  engaged  in 
"  taking  down  everything  what  we  do  wrong." 
Oh  dear,  oh  dear !  How  can  children  be 
expected  to  love  an  awful  combination  of  a 
detective  and  a  public  prosecutor  ? 


CHAPTER    VII 


INSCRIPTIONS    IN    CELLS. 


SUPPLEMENTING  what  I  have  already 
kl^  said  on  the  subject  of  the  pecuhar 
speech  of  the  crhninal,  street-haunting',  or 
vagrant  classes,  I  would  draw  some  illustra- 
tions and  observations  from  the  prison  walls, 
or  rather  the  insides  of  the  cells,  in  which  I 
spent  so  much  time  during  my  ten  years  at 
Clerkenwell. 

In  no  respect  is  the  cacoethcs  scribendi  more 
deserving  of  its  name  than  when  it  prompts 
the  illiterate  or  the  snob  to  leave  a  record  of 
his  unimportant  or  undesirable  presence.  The 
idiotic  attempts  at  feeble  and  sometimes  fetid 
wit  in  our  railway  carriages,  the  defacing  of 
the  walls  in  some  historic  place  with  names  of 
trippers  or  tourists  of  the  meaner  sort,  the  vul- 
""arisino-  of  the  most  maonihceiit  thinos  in 
nature      by      the     announcemeni      that     'Arry 


M3 


144  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

'Opkins  has  appreciated  but  himself  in  Switzer- 
land, or  Caleb  Y.  Smith  has  been  unable  to 
forget  his  personality  in  the  presence  of  Niagara, 
are  all  wonderments  to  the  philosophical  and 
saddening  to  the  moralist  or  the  believer  in 
the  capacities  of  man.  Egoism  is  the  more 
unbearable  when  the  Ego  is  contemptible  and 
unable  to  conceal  the  fact.  This  particular 
manifestation  of  egoism  and  snobbery  becomes 
not  the  less  oppressive  because  it  is  confined 
almost  entirely  to  one  class  of  the  community, 
namely,  the  lower  middle  males.  It  is  a  vice 
to  which  the  labourer  and  the  artisan  is 
remarkably  little  addicted.  It  is  rare  among 
women  of  any  class.  But  the  males  of  the 
lower  middle  class  are  unfortunately  (in  this 
respect,  at  any  rate)  a  very  numerous,  ubiquitous, 
and  irrepressible  body.  An  aggravating  circum- 
stance is  that  very  litde  light  is  thrown  upon 
the  natural  history  of  the  animal  by  its  inscrip- 
tions, which  are  chiefly  confined  to  the  abso- 
lutely unimportant  matter  of  its  name.  One 
does  learn  something  from  the  scratches  of  the 
early  Hottentots  in  their  caves,  or  from  the 
walls  of  Pompeii  ;  but  from  the  efforts  of  'Arry 
the  shopman,  or  clerk,  or  junior  bagman, 
nothing  can  be  gathered. 

There  is,   however,  one  kind  of  inscriptions 


INSCRIPTIONS    IN    CELLS  145 

which  presents  exceptions  to  many  of  the  pre- 
cecHng  remarks,   as  they  are  the  work  of  the 
lower  and  lowest, classes,  and  do  teach  much  of 
the  languajT^e,   the   habits,  and  the  habitats  of 
the  inscriber.      There  are  none  of  the  beauties 
or  solemnities  of  nature  in  view  to  be  outraged. 
It  is  not  here  that   "every  prospect  pleases," 
and     only    man    is    displayed    as    vile    by    his 
inability  to  appreciate  it  or  depreciate  himself. 
In     some    cases,    even,    they    have    a    moral 
purpose,  and  aim  at  the  interests  of  others,  not 
the    glorification    or    obtrusion    of   self      Thev 
occasionally  reveal  sentiments  which  one  could 
not  wish  absent,  even  though  one  fails  to  see 
why  they  should  be  published  in  this  particular 
way.      There  is  a  creditable  absence  from  them 
of  the  sheer  silliness  or  mere  dirt  which   is   the 
staple    of   those    inscriptions   elsewhere    which 
are   more   than    records   of   names    and    dates. 
Finally,     they    are     produced     under    circum- 
stances of  braving  an  afilictive  dietary,  results 
which  cannot,  unfortunately,  afflict  most  of  our 
public  scribblers.      I   allude  to  the   inscrij)lions 
by  the  inmates  of  j)rison  cells.      As    Hepworlh 
Dixon  says:    "It  is  a  curious  subject   lo  seek 
into    the    motives    which    impel    men    lo    write 
their    names    on    the    stones    ot     their     |)rison 

houses.      Men  of  all   ranks  and   characters  do 

II 


146  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

it  :  the  noble  in  the  Beauchamp  Tower ;  the 
felon  in  the  house  of  correction  ;  the  murderer 
in  the  cell  at  Nevvfrate.  Perhaps  it  is  the  mere 
instinct  of  activity,  denied  every  other  mode  of 
expending  itself."  Michael  Davitt,  however, 
ascribes  it  to  "  that  weakness  or  vanity  which 
induces  travellers  to  carve  their  names  upon 
the  Pyramids,"  yet  adds  later  that  he  adorned 
the  waiting-room  at  the  Old  Bailey  with  the 
record  that  "  M.  D.  expects  ten  years  for  the 
crime  of  being  an  Irish  Nationalist,  and  the 
victim  of  an   informer's  perjury." 

I  do  not,  however,  propose  to  speak  of  those 
inscriptions  which  are  of  some  historic  interest 
in  older  prisons,  into  which  in  the  bad  old  days 
came  men  for  the  crimes  of  being  Churchmen 
or  Nonconformists  (according  to  whether  the 
Independents  or  Churchmen  were  in  power), 
or  for  being  loyal  to  their  monarch  in  adversity. 
Much  might  be  gathered  of  interest  from  the 
Tower  of  London,  parts  of  which  have  been 
covered  with  inscriptions,  of  which  I  only 
quote  one  from  the   Beauchamp  Tower  : — 

"  The  man  whom  this  place  cannot  mend, 
Hath  evil  become,  and  worse  will  end." 

Much    more    interesting    information    may    be 
gathered  on  this  point  from  Hepworth  Dixon's 


INSCRIPTIONS   IN    CELLS  147 

"The  London  Prisons,"  or  by  a  personal  visit 
to  the  Tower.  Nor  should  one  omit  the 
records  in  the  wrongly-named  Lollards'  Tower 
in  Lambeth  Palace.  My  purpose  is,  however, 
to  speak  only  of  what  has  come  under  my  own 
notice,  and  to  give  some  account  of  what  I 
have  transcribed  from  time  to  time  from  the 
walls  of  my  own  prison.  Pencils  are  contra- 
band, writing  materials  only  lent  for  a  time 
when  a  letter  has  to  be  written,  and  all 
defacing  of  the  walls  would  be  a  prison  offence. 
Yet  such  power  has  the  cacoethes  scribendi  that 
the  whitewash  or  paint  is  hardly  dry  in  a 
renewed  cell  before  the  crop  of  inscriptions 
begins  to  appear.  Let  me  attempt  to  classify 
and  describe  some  of  them. 

There  are  those  which  would  certainly  puzzle 
a  future  antiquarian  who  was  learned  in  the 
tongue  of  the  Victorian  Age,  from  the  number 
of  words  they  contain  unknown  to  the  pulpit. 
the  bench,  and  even  to  Parliament.  Thus, 
"  Fullied  for  a  clock  and  slang,"  reveals  the 
fact  that  the  writer  stole  a  watch  and  chain, 
was  apprehended,  and  has  been  fully  committed 
for  trial  at  the  next  sessions  or  assize.  "  Lone 
bil  expects  bolt,"  informs  the  sympathetic  or 
rejoicing  reader  that  one  William,  whose 
stature  exceeds  that  wlilcli   is  commnn  amono- 


148  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

the  stunted  members  of  the  criminal  class  (a 
man  of  six  feet,  is  a  rare  phenomenon  in 
prison),  expects  to  be  sentenced  to  penal  ser- 
vitude. "  Neddie  from  City  Road,  smugged  for 
attempt  up  the  Grove,  expects  a  sixer,"  means 
that  a  misguided  Edward  has  been  appre- 
hended while  promenading  outside  Whiteley's, 
and  investicrating  the  contents  of  ladies' 
pockets,  and  is  reconciling  himself  to  an 
absence  from  his  oriental  home  for  half  a 
year. 

"Take  my  tip  and  turn  square,  from  a  hook 
who  is  going  to  be  legged,"  would  be,  in 
common  parlance,  Take  my  advice  and  get 
your  living  honestly,  says  a  pickpocket  who  is 
expecting  penal  servitude.  "  Fatty  Bill,  from 
City  Road,  rem  for  a  bust  ex  2  years,"  means 
that  William,  affectionately  known  to  his  com- 
panions by  the  possession  of  adiposity  (fat 
people  rarely  find  their  way  to  prison,  or 
perhaps  people  who  are  qualifying  themselves 
for  prison  rarely  get  fat),  has  (like  the  herein 
afore-mentioned  Edward)  been  compelled  to 
leave  his  congenial  haunts  in  the  City  Road, 
as  he  is  remanded  for  burglary,  and  anticipates 
two  years'  hard  labour.  Again,  from  the  City 
Road  (and  he  is  careful  to  add  E.C.  lest  he 
should    be    confused    with    some    West    End 


INSCRIPTIONS    IN    CELLS  149 

bloated  aristocrat),  next  comes  Mike,  whose 
record  is,  "  7  or  the  chucl-:  for  a  clock,"  i.e.,  he 
hopes  to  be  acquitted,  but  rather  expects  seven 
years  for  stealing  a  watch.  "  Kit  from  seven 
dials,  remanded  innocent  on  2  charges  of 
pokes,  only  out  two  weeks  for  a  drag,  expects 
to  get  fulled  or  else  chucked.  Got  2  previous 
convictions.  Cheer  up,  old  Dials."  The 
speciality  of  this  artist  is  proclaimed  to  be 
purses,  and  his  assertion  of  innocence  is  rather 
discounted  by  the  two  charges  and  two  con- 
victions which  preceded  the  three  months  hard 
labour  from  which  he  has  so  lately  emerged. 
Another  is,  "Only  just  out  of  Steel,"  i.e.,  the 
Bastile,  i.e.,  Coldbath  Fields  Prison.  "  Arthur, 
from  Marylebone,  expects  seven  years  for  some 
Snow,"  or  linen.  Another  from  the  Borough. 
"  Ten  for  a  toy,"  or  watch.  Another  complains 
that  he  is  "  Put  away  by  Charly  Start,  the 
Coppers  Nark,"  or  poHceman's  spy,  the  nark 
being  to  his  ex-companions  what  Judas  Iscariot 
is  to  the  Christian.  "  Tommy  roundhead, 
seven  dials,  fulid,  expects  two  stretch  for  a 
prop,"  or  two  years  for  stealing  a  breast  pin. 
"  Poor  old  Jim,  the  lob  crawler,  fell  from 
Racker  and  got  pinched."  is  a  lament  in  an 
unknown  tongue  to  many,  but  to  the  initiated 
conveys  succincdy  the  information   that   James 


150  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

and  his  companion  Racker  went  out  to  commit 
till  robberies  ;  being  detected,  one  escaped,  but 
the  other  was  apprehended.  Another  of  the 
trade  has  "  dipped  a  bob  for  6  quid,"  or  stolen 
six  pounds  from  a  till. 

As  most  consider  it  the  thing  to  append 
their  address  after  a  fashion,  it  becomes  very 
easy  to  compile  a  list  of  the  streets  or  lodging- 
houses  most  affected  by  the  criminal  classes  ; 
and  these  were  in  those  days  (building  opera- 
tions in  some  cases,  religious  activity  in  others, 
having  produced  changes)  : — In  the  Western 
district  :  Bangor  Street  and  Crescent  Street, 
Netting  Hill.  In  the  South-West  district  :  Pye 
Street  and  Peter  Street,  Westminster.  In  the 
East,  Flower  and  Dean  Street,  Kate  Street,  and 
the  Bee-hive  lodijin'^-house  in  Brick  Lane.  In 
the  East  Central :  Whitecross  Street  and  Golden 
Lane,  St.  Luke's  Street,  Lever  Street,  New 
North  Road,  and  the  streets  between  it  and 
Hoxton  Street  on  the  east,  and  City  Road  on 
the  West,  and  notably  Blind  Con's  lodging- 
house  in  Golden  Lane.  In  the  West  Central 
division  :  Eagle  Street,  Holborn,  Short's 
Gardens,  Drury  Lane,  the  Empress  Chambers, 
and  Fullwood's  (or  Fuller's)  Rents.  Across 
the  Thames,  Mint  Street  and  Tabard  Street, 
in   the    Boroucrh,   and    East   Street,   Walworth. 


INSCRIPTIONS   IN    CELLS  151 

These  names  come  over  and  over  ao-ain,  and 
often  afford  a  useful  clue  as  to  the  habits  of  the 
writer.  True,  as  a  prisoner  from  a  particularly 
low  lodo'ino -house  once  remarked,  "  A  man 
aint  a  'orse  because  he  live  in  a  stable,"  but  it 
is  true,  as  I  rejoined,  that  he  has  no  great 
objection  to  the  company  of  horses  if  he 
chooses  such  an  abode. 

It  would  be  naturally  imagined  that  the 
great  food  question  would  be  referred  to  in 
these  mural  records,  and  therefore  we  find  such 
remarks  as  the  followino- :  '*  Here's  luck  to  the 
pint  of  skilly  !  "  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  next 
occupant  of  the  lodgings,  "  How  do  you  like 
skilly,  old  boy?"  Or  again,  "Come  to  this 
place,  and  then  you  will  see  what  food  you  will 
get  ;  "  to  which  the  answer  might  be,  "  Such  as 
is  sufficient  to  keep  prisoners  what  they  are — 
the  most  healthy  class  in  England."  There- 
fore, "  Lord  save  us  from  starvashim,"  was  an 
unnecessary  prayer  while  the  writer  remained 
in  prison.  Yet  visions  ot  luxuries  and  excess 
will  enter  the  mind,  and  therefore  we  find  : 
"  One  more  month  then  out  we  go,  then  for 
feed  of  Hot  Coco,  hried  Bread  and  Steak, 
Plenty  of  Beer,  Better  kick  than  we  gets  here." 
A  somewhat  carnal  and  despairing  view  of 
prison   life   is    indicated  by — "  Lads,    )(iur  only 


152  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

friend  here  is  your  brown  lofe  and  pint  of 
thick."  The  following^  remark  dates  from 
before  a  uniform  system  was  introduced  by  the 
prisoners  comino"  under  Government  :  "  This 
prison  is  worse  than  Maidstone  ;  Prisoners' 
dinners  at  to  {i.e.,  not  until  two)  clock  and 
very  bad  then."  Yet  the  variety  of  diet  is 
beneficial  from  other  points  of  view  than 
the  physical  one — anything  to  minimise  the 
horrors  of  monotony  ;  and  so  one  wrote, 
"  Cheer  u|),  boys,  down  with  sorrow  :  Beef 
to-day,  Soup  to-morrow,"  which  again  does 
not  sound  as  if  "stir  [i.e.,  prison),  means 
starvation,"  were  the  expression  of  a  fact, 
whether  etymological  or  physical.  A  com- 
mon yearning  during  the  first  part  of  an  im- 
prisonment would  be  expressed  in,  "O  for  a 
pot  of  beer,"  or  the  artless  poem  : — 


"  O  who  can  tell  the  panes  I  feel, 
A  poor  and  harmless  sailor. 
I  miss  my  grog  and  every  meal  ; 
Here  comes  the  blooming  jailor." 


But  those  inscriptions  are  of  more  real 
interest  which  show  that  the  quiet  and  solitary 
life  has  begun  to  arouse  reflective  powers,  and 
that  reason  or  conscience,  long  dormant  or 
drugged,  again  make  their  voices  heard.    There 


INSCRIPTIONS    IN    CELLS  153 

are  very  few  people  who  would  not  be  benefited 
by  a  month  in  prison,  if  they  had  the  sense  and 
the  grace  to  use  the  opportunity  thus  afforded 
for  meditation  and  resolution.  They  might 
doubtless  make  for  themselves  the  same  op- 
portunities in  some  external  retreat,  but  then 
they  generally  will  not,  or  at  any  rate  do  not. 
Plainly  a  step  forwards  and  upwards  has  been 
taken,  albeit  a  minor  one,  when  the  prisoner 
has  beirun  to  search  out  the  cause  of  his 
position,  as  had  those  who  wrote,  "  I  advise 
you  to  keep  away  from  beer  ;  be  a  teatotaler," 
or  "Goodbye  all.  Give  up  drink,"  or  "Take 
my  advice  and  keep  from  drink,  for  it  has  been 
the  ruin  of  me  ;  it  will  be  a  warning  to  me  U)r 
life;"  words  which  might  impress  another 
prisoner  more  as  coming  from  one  in  his  own 
condition  than  if  they  came  from  the  chaplain. 
Or  again,  from  the  female  side  (in  which 
inscriptions  are  much  rarer),  "  I,  Eliz.  F., 
take  an  oath  1  never  touch  drink  again  with 
the  help  of  God."  Prison  resolutions  are  no 
doubt  mainly  equal  in  value  to  sick-bed  reso- 
lutions, but  yet  from  both  there  comes  a 
percentage  of  permanent  good,  and  it  is  by  no 
means  rare  to  find  that  the  compulsory 
abstinence  of  a  prison  has  been  the  prelude  to 
voluntary  abstinence  outside,  which  has  seemed 


154  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

or  been  thought  impossible  before.  Again,  "A 
prisoner's  advice  :  sign  the  pledge,"  which  had 
been  anticipated  or  acted  upon  by  another, 
who  deposes,  "  h  pint  whiskey  brought  me 
here  :  took  the  pledge  for  two  years — renew- 
able for  ever."  Should  it  be  objected  that 
prisoners  seem  to  ascribe  all  their  crimes  to 
intemperance,  the  answer  is  that  in  seventy- 
five  cases  out  of  a  hundred  this  is  so,  by  a 
computation  that  is  below  that  of  many  cognos- 
centi. 

Again,  a  step  of  solid  value  has  been  taken 
when  reflection  leads  one  to  consider  how  little 
evil  pays  after  all,  even  on  commercial  prin- 
ciples. A  further  and  higher  application  of 
the  question,  "  What  shall  it  profit  a  man  ?  " 
becomes  more  easy  after  this  first  step.  Of 
course  we  meet  with  the  stock  adage  which 
bears  on  this  point  in  the  words,  "  Take  advice 
from  a  convict — honesty  is  the  best  policy,  my 
boys  ;  "  but  there  is  candour  or  humour  in  the 
variant  form,  "  Honesty  is  the  best  policy  for 
a  little  while."  Many  have  reached  the  point 
of  considering  how  much  money  they  lose  by 
what  they  take,  as  evidenced  in  "  Babzey  from 
the  Kate  (i.e.  Kate  Street,  Spitalfields),  7  yrs. 
for  /^;^T,  ;"  or,  "  Ten  days  and  ten  years  for  a 
box   of  money   with    9s.   yd.    in   the  box  ; "   or, 


INSCRIPTIONS   IN    CELLS  155 

"  Harry  the  painter  from  Strand,  expects  6 
months  for  5  bob  ; "  or  the  melancholy  reHec- 
tion  on  the  depression  of  trade,  "  Burglary  is  a 
poor  game  nowadays."  Another  moralist  is 
moved  to  poetry  : — 

"  When  I  get  out  I  do  intend 
My  future  life  to  try  and  mend, 
For  sneaking's  a  game  that  does  not  pay  ; 
You  are  bound  to  get  lagged,  do  what  you  may. 
Written  by  one  who  knows  it  to  his  sorrow. 
Who  expects  12  months'  for  only  a  borrow." 

(Cf.  "Convey  the  wise  it  call").  A  similar 
thought  occurred  to  him  who  wrote  : — 

"  For  seven  long  years  have  I  served  them, 
And  seven  long  years  I  have  to  stay. 
For  meeting  a  bloke  in  our  alley 
And  taking  his  ticker  away." 

Then  there  are  moral  remarks  of  a  more 
varied  kind,  such  as  this,  by  one  who  probably 
bewailed  the  lack  of  visitors  :  "  Lads,  wen 
your  outside  and  got  nioney  your  got  friends, 
but  wen  your  here  and  got  no  money  you  got 
no  friends  ;  "  or  the  sneer  of  another  pessi- 
mist, "  What  a  happy  world  this  is!  "  (Pretty 
much  what  we  choose  to  make  it,  my  Iriend  ; 
man  makes  his  circumstances  more  than  circum- 
stances  make    the    man.)       "Cheer   up,   girls; 


156  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

it's  no  use  to  fret,"  may  be  the  utterance  of  a 
better  spirit  or  the  vain  attempt  to  drown 
remorse  or  shame.  "  I  hope  the  best  but 
dread  the  worst,"  is  a  natural  remark,  only 
acquitted,  by  which  probably  "the  best"  is 
meant,  is  not  always  a  boon  in  the  long  run. 
"  Chambre  de  la  meditation  "  is  an  appropriate 
description  of  what  a  cell  may  be  to  the  benefit 
of  the  inmate.  "  Return  good  for  evil  ;  "  let 
us  hope  this  was  not  mentally  addressed  to  the 
prosecutor,  but  was  a  personal  admonition. 
"  Vincit  qui  patitur  "  reminds  us  that  it  is  not 
the  uneducated  only  that  fall  into  crime.  But 
reasoning  power  seems  to  have  been  absent 
from  him  who  wrote,  "All  in  lonely  cell  I  lie. 
No  better  I  deserve.  It  will  make  your  blood 
run  cold,  To  think  how  I  got  served,"  wherein 
it  is  difficult  to  see  w^hether  the  acceptance  of 
penance  or  the  spirit  of  rebellion  against  it  was 
the  innermost  thought.  "  Law  for  the  rich, 
but  none  for  the  poor,"  is  a  maxim  which 
derives  its  sting  from  its  truth  not  having 
passed  away  with  feudalism,  though  sometimes 
quoted  to  justify  absurd  complaints.  Was  it  a 
visit  or  the  absence  of  a  visit  that  inspired, 
"  Oh,  what  is  love,  if  not  the  same  in  wealth, 
prosperity,  adversity,  and  shame  .-*  "  Certainly 
from  prison  walls  come  very  touching  examples 


INSCRIPTIONS   IN   CELLS  157 

in  everyday  life,  as  in  history,  that  love  will  '^o 
to  the  fj;"allows.  The  application,  "  Wen  your 
neighbour's  house  is  on  fire,  save  your  own," 
requires  explanation,  which  only  the  writer 
could  give.  Was  "  In  speaking  of  another's 
faults,  Pray  don't  forget  your  own,"  an  attempt 
at  self-consolation  on  the  part  of  a  prisoner 
who  had  been  reprimanded  for  some  breach 
of  rules?  "Cheer  up,  lads;  time  Hies,"  was 
written  by  one  who  would  better  have  remem- 
bered the  entire  adage  of  the  dial,  "  Pereunt — 
et  imputantur."  "  You  are  a  lot  of  fools  to  get 
in  here,  myself  included,"  is  frank,  but  oblivious 
to  the  fact  that  rogues  are  invariably  fools, 
sometimes  happily  for  society.  If  this  is  not 
mere  sentimentality,  there  is  pathos  in  this 
sentiment,  "  The  heart  may  break,  yet  may 
brokenly  live  on  !  "  Good  John  Bullish  words 
in  "  It's  no  use  crying  ;  you  have  got  to  do  it  ; 
then,  after  you  have  done  it,  don't  do  it  any 
more;  I  won't."  "Think  of  your  mother," 
was  no  doubt  the  well-meant  advice  of  one 
who  had  personally  profited  by  such  thought  ; 
but  until  many  mothers  cease  to  be  the  active 
as  well  as  the  passive  cause  of  their  children 
going  wrong  it  is  not  safe  to  scatter  this  counsel 
brc^adcast.  When,  for  example,  a  j)risoner  tells 
me  :   "  I   was  born    in   prison   while  n\y  mother 


158  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

was  doing-  a  month  for  being  drunk,  and  I 
expect  to  die  in  prison,"  I  had  rather  he 
should  not  reflect  on  her  influence  and 
example.  But,  "  Man,  know  thyself,"  would 
not  fail  to  fit  any  future  occupant  of  the  cell. 
If  not  morality,  there  is  at  least  philosophy 
and  bitter  truth  in  the  reply  or  comment  on 
the  words  of  Alf.  Jones,  who  had  written, 
"Good-bye,  Lucy  dear,  I'm  parted  from  you 
for  seven  long  year."     The  reply  was  : — 


"  If  Lucy  dear  is  like  most  gals, 
She'll  give  few  sighs  or  moans, 
But  soon  will  find  among  your  pals 
Another  Alfred  Jones." 


Evidence  of  memory  and  the  power  of  appli- 
cation is  found  in  such  inscribed  quotations  as 
this,  from  an  old  English  ballad,  which  is 
pathetic  when  found  in  a  female  prisoner's 
cell  :— 


"  I  wish  to  God  my  baby  was  born, 
And  smiling  on  its  father's  knee, 
And  I,  poor  girl,  lay  in  my  grave, 
I'he  green  grass  growing  over  me." 


The     inevitable,     "  Abandon     hope,     all     ye 
who  enter  here,"  is  of  course   found,  and  the 


INSCRIPTIONS   IN    CELLS  159 

equally  inevitable,  "  Stone  walls  do  not  a  prison 
make,  nor  iron  bars  a  cage."  Politics  are, 
happily,  left  outside,  and  do  not  disturb  our 
tranquillity  or  embitter  our  fate,  the  only  in- 
scription of  this  sort  beincr  "  Vote  for  Dilke  and 
Firth,"  which  was  not,  I  presume,  inspired  by 
any  knowledge  that  I  was  a  voter  in  the 
Chelsea   Division. 

The  oppressiveness  of  time,  which  is  the 
real  punishment  of  prison  life  to  most,  finds 
a  strikinof  record  in  such  words  as  these  : 
"21,000  times  have  I  walked  round  this  cell 
in  a  week  " — a  self-imposed  treadmill,  which 
speaks  expressively  of  the  pains  of  anticipation 
and  unrest ;  or  in  these  other  rosaries  of 
despair  :  "  3,300  bricks  in  this  cell,"  and  in 
another  place,  "131  black  tiles,  150  red  tiles 
in  this  cell."  Birds  could  not  sing  if  they  were 
reduced  to  counting  the  wires  in  their  cage, 
in  the  hope  of  drowning  thought.  Certain 
generalisations  of  observant  and  experienced 
men  appear  in  the  description  of  the  productive 
qualities  of  various  places,  to  wit,  "  London  for 
sharpers,  Brummagem  for  thieves,  Paris  for 
flymen,  Sheffield  for  pitchers  of  snyde 
(coiners  and  utterers),  signed  by  Darkey, 
the  gun  (or  gonoph,  i.e.,  thief),  from  W^ands- 
worth  Road,  for  a  bust."     Or  as  regards  the 


i6o  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

ultimate  destination  of  these  gentlemen,  we 
find  that  the  convict's  establishment  have 
Murrays  of  their  own,   who  say — 


"  Dartmoor  is  a  tidy  place, 
Chatham  is  the  terror  of  our  race, 
Portland  is  not  quite  so  bad, 
Broadmoor  is  for  those  stark  mad, 
Pentonville  is  the  hill  of  London, 
Borstal  if  you're  there  you're  undone, 
Portsmouth  is  a  noted  shop, 
Brixton  is  a  regular  cop." 


Or,  as  a  more  fleshly  poet  writes — 


"  Millbank  for  thick  shins  and  graft  at  the  pump, 
Broadmoor  for  all  laggs  who  go  off  their  chump  (become 

insane), 
Brixton  for  good  toke  and  cocoa  with  fat, 
Dartmoor  for  bad  grub,  but  plenty  of  chat  ; 
Portsmouth  a  blooming  bad  place  for  hard  work, 
Chatham  on  Sunday  gives  four  ounces  of  pork, 
Portland  is  the  worst  of  the  lot  for  to  joke  in, 
For  fetching  a  lagging  there's  no  place  like  Woking." 


I  have  left  to  the  last  the  by  no  means  least 
instructive  class  of  inscriptions,  the  religious 
ones.  Many  of  them  may  be  the  expression 
of  hypocrisy,  for  the  prison  world  is  not  much 
better  than  the  external  world  of  undetected 
persons  ;  many  may  record  an  emotion  which 


INSCRIPTIONS   IN    CELLS  i6i 

dies  almost  at  its  birth,  like  the  resolutions 
that  arc  born  in  church  and  buried  in  the 
churchyard  ;  but  yet  it  must  be  remembered 
that  they  are  not  meant  to  catch  the  eye,  and 
thus  curry  favour,  for  what  they  would  gain 
would  probably  be  a  day's  bread  and  water  for 
defacino-  the  cell  contrary  to  regulations,  or 
being-  in  possession  of  a  contraband  pencil. 
In  not  a  few  cases,  however,  they  spring  from 
a  revived  (^r  new-born  emotion  that  convinces 
or  calms,  softens  or  makes  brave  to  endure. 
Instances  of  these  inscriptions  are  :  "Keep 
your  sins  ever  before  thee,"  or  "  P^ear  God 
and  scorn  the  devil,  then  you  will  not  be  here 
again"  ;  or  (with  another  suspicion  of  the  dualist 
heresy),  "  The  Almighty  for  Master,  the  (le\i] 
for  servant.  Amen."  In  which  case  the  love 
of  antithesis  has  proved  fatal  to  the  theological 
accuracy,  or  even  the  common  sense  of  the 
author.  "  Whatsoever  you  would  that  man 
should  do  unto  you,  even  so  do  it  unto  them," 
may  have  reminded  the  prisoner  of  the  innate 
selfishness  of  criminality,  or  have  been  meant 
as  a  remiiuU;r  of  how  mercy  must  rejoice  over 
judgment,  and  kindness  accompany  the  dis- 
charge of  duty.  Was  some  David  strixing  to 
be  his  own  Nathan  when  he  wrote;:  "Thou 
hast  forgotten  the  law  of  thy  God  ;   I  will  also 

12 


i62  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

forget  thee  "  ?  And  certainly  the  hymn  based 
on  Hohnan  Hunt's  "  Light  of  the  World  "  has 
rarely  found  more  striking  application  than 
when  it  was  written  on  a  cell  door :  "  O 
Jesus,  Thou  art  standing  outside  the  fast- 
closed  door,"  and  the  rest  of  the  poem  fol- 
lowed. And  the  city  motto,  "  Domine  dirige 
nos,"  was  certainly  more  in  place  here  than 
when  I  observed  it  under  the  City  Arms  on 
the  doors  of  a  gin-palace  in  the  City  Road. 
Nor  are  the  cases  unknown  in  which  real  a-ood 
comes  out  of  apparent  evil,  and  the  prisoner 
can  honestly  and  thankfully  say,  "The  Lord 
saith,  It  is  good  to  be  here."  Says  another, 
with  doubtless  a  good  intention,  "  Brethren 
in  adversity,  turn  your  heart  to  God  and  be 
happy."  Pregnant  and  not  selfish  is  the  prayer 
and  intercession,  "  God  help  me,  God  help 
you."  Useful  the  reminder,  "  The  Lord's  eye 
is  everywhere  "  ;  or  this,  "  It's  never  too  late 
to  mend  ;  God  help  us  to  do  so.  Amen." 
Was  that  man  hardened  who  wrote,  "  God 
bless  my  wife  and  children,"  as  a  relief  to  a 
heart  that  ached  for  the  aches  it  had  caused 
to  other  hearts  ?  And,  finally,  the  inscription, 
"  I  was  in  prison  and  ye  visited  me,"  may  help 
to  remind  my  readers  of  how  it  is  easier  and 
more   common   to   give   prisoners  contempt  or 


INSCRIPTIONS   IN    CELLS  163 

blame,  or  to  let  them  drop  out  of  public  or 
private  prayer,  than  to  obey  the  Master's 
command  in  spirit,  if  it  be  impossible  according 
to  the  letter. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


SUICIDE — ITS     CAUSES. 


THE  revelation  of  the  sanctity  of  life  is  a 
manifestation  of  the  will  of  God,  largely, 
thoug-h  not  entirely,  peculiar  to  the  two  forms 
in  which  His  one  Church  has  existed — inchoate 
in  Judaism,  complete  in  Catholicity.  Philo- 
sophic agnosticism  very  naturally  commends  or 
tolerates  infanticide  or  suicide,  and  in  its  new 
paganism  reproduces  the  habit  of  mind  which 
saw  no  sanctity  when  there  was  no  undoubted 
utility  or  pecuniary  advantage  in  the  life  of 
the  slave,  the  aged,  or  the  unwanted  child. 
The  influence  of  religion  is  so  far  the  chief 
force  that  makes  against  suicide  that  by  itself 
it  far  outweighs  the  combined  influences  which 
arise  from  mere  civilisation,  culture,  morality, 
or  economic,  political,  and  psychological  con- 
ditions.    Where  the  influence  of  religion  is  less 

felt,  or  where  it  is  of  a  kind  that  affects  senti- 

164 


SUICIDE— ITS   CAUSES  165 

ment  rather  than  faith  and  practice,  there,  as 
the  carefully  collected  and  collated  statistics  of 
all  countries  show,  the  ratio  of  suicides  to  the 
population  is  high,  and  has  a  tendency  to 
increase  steadily,  and  even  rapidly.  Pew  have 
studied,  few.  indeed,  have  the  opportunity  to 
study  on  a  sufficiently  large  basis  the  pheno- 
mena of  suicide,  and  yet,  without  the  knowledge 
of  its  causes,  the  efforts  cannot  be  rightly 
directed  which  would  make  for  its  diminution. 
As  I  have  had  to  do  with  over  three  hundred 
cases  of  attempted  suicide  in  a  single  year,  and 
during  ten  years  of  prison  service  had  to  study 
and  report  to  the  magistrates  on  each  case,  so 
as  to  aid  them  in  the  right  dealing  with  the 
would-be  suicide  after  the  usual  "remand  for  a 
week  to  receive  the  advice  of  the  chaplain,"  I 
may  claim  to  have  had  such  opportunities  for 
observation  and  deduction  as  have  been 
accorded  to  few,  and  some  thoughts  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  sin  and  crime  and  its  causes  may 
be  useful  to  those  who,  as  thinkers  or  workers, 
are  interested  in  moral  and  social  questions. 

First,  let  it  be  noticed  that  the  legal  defini- 
tion of  the  offence  is  "  the  crime  of  scK- 
murder,"  or  yt'/c*  rt't'  sc  ;  the  human  law  in  this 
respect  not  having  parted  company  with  the 
Divine,  as  expressetl  in  the  sixth  coinmaiulment. 


i66  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

It  is  not  in  the  eye  of  the  law  a  "  rash  act," — 
to  use  the  minimising-  phrase  of  the  penny-a- 
liner — but  a  criminal  act,  one  injurious  to  the 
well-being  of  the  community,  and  not  merely  a 
personal  and  private  sin  which  the  law  might 
consider  outside  its  purview.  There  are  cases, 
of  course,  that  will  occur  to  all  in  which  a  good 
and  useful  life  has  been  ended,  as  regards  its 
earthly  stage,  in  this  way,  under  the  influence 
of  undoubted  delirium,  and  when  there  is 
justification  for  the  usually  unjustifiable  verdict 
of  temporary  insanity.  Putting  such  cases 
aside,  however,  the  act  of  self-murder  is 
frequently  worse  than  that  crime  which  is 
expiated  on  the  scaffold,  inasmuch  as  it  is  (i) 
More  deliberate.  The  angry  blow  that  causes 
the  death  of  another  may  have  been  preceded 
by  the  passion  of  only  a  few  minutes,  and  to 
inflict  sonie  pain  may  have  been  its  only 
intention  ;  but,  in  many  instances,  the  suicide 
has  been  preceded  by  careful  preparations  and 
by  many  a  resistance  to  better  thoughts.  (2) 
More  cowardly.  In  innumerable  instances  the 
suicide  is  simply  shrinking  from  the  shame  of 
the  exposure  of  some  dishonest  or  immoral 
act,  which  shame,  if  he  had  any  penitence,  he 
would  bear,  or  even  welcome,  as  a  fitting 
punishment  for  his  sin  ;   David,  being  penitent. 


SUICIDE— ITS   CAUSES  167 

did  not  commit  suicide  when  exposed  and 
denounced  ;  judas,  being  impenitent,  or  but 
partially  penitent,  did.  And  again,  its  coward- 
ice is  abundantly  evident  in  the  utter  carelessness 
of  the  offender  as  to  the  legacy  of  shame  and 
loss  which  he  leaves  to  his  family  and  friends. 
"  So  long  as  I  can  get  out  of  this  trouble,  never 
mind  what  happens  to  others  "  is  practically  his 
cry.  And  (3)  the  example  is  more  contagious. 
Other  suicides,  and  even  a  local  epidemic  of 
suicide,  more  surely  arise  from  one  act  well 
published  and  little  condemned,  than  from  the 
slaughter  of  another.  Moreover,  (4)  while  the 
murderer  is  allowed,  and  even  carefully  pro- 
vided with,  the  time  for  and  the  aids  to  repent- 
ance before  death,  the  suicide  terminates  his 
period  of  probation  in  the  very  act  of  rebellion. 
But,  as  I  have  already  shown  in  these 
columns  with  regard  to  offences  against  honesty, 
the  useful  line  of  inquiry  is  "  not  whether,  but 
why,"  and  we  should  not  content  ourselves  with 
observing  or  enumerating  criminal  acts,  but 
seek  to  discover  their  causes,  and  which  of 
them  are  most  common  and  most  j^reventable, 
so  that  the  cnenjv  of  the  Church  or  State  mav 
be  directed  to  their  removal.  Now  the  chief 
cause  of  suicide,  in  England  at  any  rate,  is 
undoubtedly    intemperance,    which    directly   or 


i68  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

indirectly  is  the  chief  cause  of  75  per  cent,  of 
all  crime,  anci  most  certainly  of  half  the 
attempts  at  suicide.  Morselli's  ten  categories 
of  the  cause  of  suicide  are — i,  psychopathic 
conditions  (insanity  and  the  like)  ;  2,  physical 
diseases  ;  3,  weariness  of  life  ;  4,  violent 
passions  ;  5,  vices  ;  6,  domestic  troubles  ;  7, 
financial  derangements  ;  8,  misery  ;  9,  remorse 
and  shame ;  10,  despair.  But  it  is  obvious 
that  in  many  of  these  categories  alcoholism  is 
the  remote,  though  not  the  immediate  cause  of 
the  death,  having  produced,  or  helped  to 
produce  the  insanity,  the  poverty,  or  the  shame. 
A  remarkable  bit  of  evidence  comes  from 
Sweden,  which,  as  Dr.  Morselli  wrote  in  1881, 
"has  for  lono"  been  the  classic  orround  of 
alcoholism,  and,  before  the  last  restrictive  laws, 
also  for  suicides  owinof  to  that  cause."  The 
proportion  steadily  grew  up  to  65*5  per  cent,  in 
1855,  but  then,  after  the  law  passed  in  the 
interests  of  temperance,  fell  to  18*2,  and  in  the 
next  quinquennial  period  to  only  11  "2.  I  once 
carefully  investigated  300  consecutive  cases  of 
attempted  suicide  that  came  under  my  notice 
and  care,  and  found  that  of  these  145  were 
directly  and  27  were  indirectly  attributable  to 
intemperance.  In  one  July  I  had  28  cases, 
of  which    21    were  due  to  the  drunkenness   of 


SUICIDE— ITS   CAUSES  169 

the  would-be  suicide,  3  to  the  acts  of  intem- 
perate husbands,  i  was  partially  due  to  drink, 
and  only  3  were  apparently  not  in  any  way 
drink-caused. 

There  are  always  more  suicides  in  the 
summer  than  in  the  winter  half  of  the  year,  not 
because  the  water  is  less  cold,  but  because  the 
drink  is  more  inviting  and  attainable.  Suicide, 
in  fact,  presents  no  exception  to  the  canon, 
"  Crime  is  CKStival,"  because  it,  like  crime 
generally,  is  chieHy  drink-caused  ;  and  it  would 
seem  almost  natural  and  logical  that  slow 
suicide  by  alcohol  should  lead  to  more  rapid 
and  violent  forms  of  destroying  our  vital 
power  ;  that  the  loss  of  self  respect  inseparable 
from  drunkenness,  the  want  of  self-control 
fostered  and  increased  by  daily  indulgence,  the 
continual  preference  of  that  which  gives 
pleasure  or  seems  to  relieve  depression  for  the 
moment  at  the  expense  of  future  loss  of  shame, 
should  culminate  in  a  suicide,  wherein,  to  use 
words  quoted  to  me  by  one  who  had  attempted 
self-murder  : — 


" 'I'hcy  .   .   .  cowards  lo  themselves 
And  llicir  Ocator,  cut  their  existence  short 
And  iunl  their  spirits  hack  a^ain  lo  Cod, 
Disdainhil  of  tlie  Hfc  which  Wisdom  gave." 


I70  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

Moral.  Those  who  are  not  in  some  way 
promoting-  temperance  and  combating  intem- 
perance, have  more  bloodguiltiness  than  others 
in  regard  to  the  suicides  of  their  locaHty  and 
their  land. 

Next  to  intemperance  I  should  be  inclined 
to  put  as  a  cause,  Depression,  arising  from 
destitution,  debt,  disease,  distress,  despair, 
dissensions,  delusions,  dreariness,  and  desolation. 
(Is  it  not  noticeable,  by  the  bye,  how  most  bad 
things  begin  with  "d,"  and  so  take  after  their 
father  the  devil  .^).  Depression  generally,  from 
whatever  cause  it  may  arise,  may  account  for 
about  a  sixth  of  the  number  of  cases.  But 
now  I  come  to  certain  moral  causes,  to  draw 
attention  to  which  is  the  chief  object  of  this 
article  : — 

I.  Remembering  that  suicide  is  in  the  cate- 
gory of  "crimes  of  violence,"  we  find  its 
predisposing  cause  in  the  atmosphere  of  violent 
language  in  which  thousands  of  the  children  of 
our  slums  are  reared.  "  I'll  break  every  bone 
in  your  body,"  is  looked  upon  by  the  British 
matron  of  a  certain  and  common  type  as 
certainly  no  reprehensible  phrase,  hardly  a 
threat,  almost  an  expression  of  endearment. 
Father  and  mother  abuse  one  another  in  the 
angriest  and  filthiest  language,   the   masculine 


SUICIDE— ITS   CAUSES  171 

fist  and  the  feminine  poker  are  freely  used,  the 
fading  lines  of  the  last  black  eye  are  revived, 
the  whole  neighbourhood  is  aroused,  crowds  of 
children  study  this  object-lesson  in  domestic 
economy,  and  eventually  it  is  described  as 
"  only  a  few  family  words."  "  I  wish  I  was 
dead  "  is  to  many  a  lass  only  the  equivalent  of 
"  I  am  disappointed  or  annoyed,"  and  when 
suggestive  speech  becomes  action,  whether 
towards  others  or  against  one's  own  life,  who  can 
wonder  ?  When  in  a  few  months  I  had  to 
deal  with  a  suicidal  girl  of  fourteen,  two  of 
fifteen,  one  of  sixteen,  ten  of  seventeen,  two  of 
eighteen,  and  thirteen  of  nineteen,  this  cause, 
far  more  than  those  of  drunkenness,  or  of 
tcBciiuui  vitcE,  was  to  be  expected  and  to  be 
found. 

2.  The  moral  standard  for  thousands  is 
provided  chiefly,  if  not  solely,  by  what  is,  or  is 
not,  punishable  in  the  police-courts,  and  not 
unnaturally  little  harm  is  seen  in  what  the  law 
ignores  or  treats  lightly.  So  Sir  Peter  Laurie 
was  not  so  far  wroni>",  thou-j^h  well  derided  at 
the  time,  when  he  announced  his  intention, 
as  a  magistrate,  of  pulling  down  suicide.  He 
probably  mccuit,  what  is  undoubtedly  true,  that 
some  real  punishment,  inlhcted  as  a  rule,  would 
act  as  a  deterrent  lo  those  whose  inclinalioii  to 


172  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

suicide  arose  from  folly  or  passion.  Two  years' 
imprisonment  can  be  awarded  for  the  attempt, 
but  I  only  remember  one  instance  of  this 
sentence  being  given,  and  then  it  was  by  no 
means  undeserved,  and  gave  the  offender  a 
chance  of  a  quiet  and  healthy  life  that  she  cer- 
tainly would  never  have  known  outside.  But, 
as  the  usual  course  is  a  week's  remand  and  a 
lecture,  little  is  thought  of  the  offence.  Sureties 
of  good  conduct  might  in  every  case  be  required 
with  advantage.  One  of  my  predecessors  at 
Clerkenwell  Prison  wrote:  "Amongst  the  list 
of  attempted  suicides  will  be  found  the  names 
of  certain  offenders  who  have  been  committed 
for  trial.  These  were  old  offenders  and  deter- 
mined drinkers.  They  were  sentenced  to 
different  terms  of  imprisonment,  and  it  is 
worthy  of  note  that  no  female  was,  for  the 
unusual  space  of  five  weeks  after  the  last 
sentence  passed,  committed  to  this  prison  for  a 
similar  offence."  This  is  just  what  the  alder- 
man meant,  and  showed  the  mercifulness  of 
inflicting  punishment,  and  how  impressive 
to  the  community  are  the  sermons  of  the 
Sessions. 

3.  A  grave  responsibility  for  any  prevalence 
or  increase  of  suicide  rests  on  all  teachers  and 
preachers  who  have  never  taught  that  suicide 


SUICIDE— ITS   CAUSES 


173 


is  wrong",  and  why  it  is  wrong.  Few,  indeed, 
are  the  confirmation  candidates  that  seem  ever 
to  have  had  any  explanation  of  the  Sixth 
Commandment,  or  to  have  any  imagination 
that  it  refers  to  anything  save  cutting  some  one 
else's  throat.  This  is  only  one  symptom  of  the 
common  disease,  a  subordination  of  definite, 
direct,  and  detailed  moral  teaching  to  the 
memorisinor  of  strinofs  of  texts,  or  the  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  missionary  journeys  of  St. 
Paul.  Let  them  rather  have  moral  training 
and  a  thorough  o-roundinor  in  the  full  meanintj 
of  the  Decalogue,  and  then  they  will  understand 
that  self-murder  is  murder,  and  that  the  prayer 
in  the  Litany  to  be  delivered  from  sudden, 
i.e.,  unprepared  death,  is  a  foiiiori  a  prayer 
aoainst  suicide. 

4.  One  cause  that  I  have  often  traced  is  the 
false  sentiment,  or  rather  sentimentality,  that 
is  talkc'd  aljout  the  question,  and  the  spurious 
glamour  thrown  over  it  by  some  poets  and 
novelists.  I  distinctly  believe  that  more  harm 
than  good,  and  that  in  more  directions  than 
one,  has  been  done  by  tlie  poem  of  T.  Hood, 
"  The  Bridge  of  Sighs,"  written,  no  doubt, 
with  the  laudable  object  of  evoking  charity  for 
the  despised,  and  yet  in  the  result  tinging  both 
immorality  and  suicide  with  a  halo  of  romance, 


174  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

describing  that  merely  as  misfortune  which  is 
in  most  cases  a  deHberate  choice,  and  affording 
a  justification  of  cowardice  and  crime  to  the 
unreasoning  and  hysterical.  So  the  senti- 
mentality and  the  humanitarian  ism,  which  are 
enervated  and  enervatino-  substitutes  for  the 
precious  and  necessary  sentiment  and  humanity, 
continue  in  many  workers,  and  some  organised 
works,  to  do  harm  under  the  name  of  God. 

5.  The  general  neglect  of  the  discipline  of 
the  Church,  whereby  the  use  of  the  ordinary 
Burial  Service  is  forbidden  over  the  bodies  of 
those  who  have  laid  violent  hands  upon  them- 
selves (albeit  neither  in  this  case  nor  in  that  of 
the  unbaptized  is  there  any  prohibition  of  the 
use  of  some  prayer  or  ceremony)  has  no  doubt 
something  to  do  with  tjie  cessation  of  more  just 
views  of  suicide.  So  when  we  read  in  Hanikt, 
"  Who  is  this  they  follow  and  with  such  maimed 
rites  }  This  doth  betoken  the  corse  they  follow 
did  with  desperate  hand  foredo  its  own  life,"  we 
may  be  sure  that  such  an  impressive  object- 
lesson  would  tend  to  deter  the  beholder  from 
the  offence.  Unhappily,  the  barbarism  of  in- 
terment at  cross  roads,  and  the  stake  thrust 
through  the  body,  and  the  injustice  of  pre- 
venting the  innocent  and  injured  family  of  the 
suicide    from    inheriting    his    possessions,    pro- 


SUICIDE— ITS   CAUSES  175 

duced  by  revulsion  of  sentiment  a  laxity  of 
thought  and  practice  not  without  its  own  evil. 
Yet  it  is  more  than  doubtful  if  the  clergy,  in 
view  of  the  rubric,  have  any  right  to  shelter 
themselves  behind  the  verdict  of  temporary 
insanity,  which  is  so  commonly  not  only  not 
supported  by,  but  in  the  teeth  of,  all  evidence, 
and  can  only  be  justified  on  arguments  that 
tend  to  the  denial  of  any  criminality  in  any 
wrong-doing. 

6.  One  of  the  chief  causes,  albeit  unsuspected 
by  the  world,  and  still  more  by  the  suicides,  is 
that  for  which  teachers  and  preachers  are 
chiefly  responsible,  and  that  is  the  vagueness, 
if  not  entire  absence,  of  definite  teaching  on 
the  intermediate  state  and  the  permanence  of 
character  and  the  continuity  of  life  therein. 
Hence  Jews  have  a  very  low  ratio  of  suicide, 
due  to  their  having  an  eschatological  system  as 
well  as  to  their  general  sobriety.  Hence,  too, 
while  Romanists  contribute  always  and  every- 
where far  more  than  their  fair  proportion  of 
criminals  according  to  their  numbers  in  the 
general  population,  yet  they  are  comparatively 
rare  as  suicides.  Why  ?  Because  they  have 
not  been  tauoht  or  allowed  to  believe  that  the 
•  mere  act  of  dying  miraculously  transforms,  that 
death  has  an  absolving  and  sanctifying  power, 


176  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

or  that  In  any  way  "  there  will  be  an  end  of  me 
and  my  troubles,"  which  is  the  stock  phrase  of 
those  who,  taught  only  in  creedless  systems  at 
the  best,  are  contemplating-  or  excusing-  suicide. 
Roman  Catholic  Ireland  has  i8,  Protestant 
Saxony  299  suicides  per  million,  a  difference 
partly  attributable  to  race,  but  still  more  to 
religion.  The  unscriptural  theology  of  most 
Protestant  sects  anent  the  state  of  the  dis- 
embodied soul  makes  many  souls  prematurely 
and  sinfully  disembodied.  The  undue  exalta- 
tion of  the  mercy  of  God,  coupled  with  the 
practical  abolition  of  the  idea  of  a  Paradise, 
leads  inevitably,  and  has  led  notoriously,  to  a 
depreciation  both  of  the  sinfulness  of  sin  and  of 
the  holiness  of  God,  when  men  imagine  that 
death  is  the  short  and  immediate  road  to 
Heaven. 

7.  The  increase  of  infidelity,  whether  avowed 
or  practical,  of  course  tends  to  an  increase  of 
suicide  when  one  no  longer  enjoys  the  life  or 
the  world  that  one  has  come  to  consider  the 
only  one.  So  one  understands  why  the  ratio 
in  France  increased  from  85  per  1,000  in  the 
year  1845  ^o  150  in  1875,  and  Morselli  notes, 
as  regards  the  department  of  the  Isle  de 
France,  that  it,  though  nominally  Catholic, 
has  a  high  suicide  rate,   for  "the  influence  of 


SUICIDE— ITS   CAUSES  177 

Paris  is  such  as  altogether  to  neutrahse  that 
of  religion." 

These  seven  causes  that  I  have  enumerated 
should  supply  subjects  for  self-examination  for 
all  who  are  conscious  of  the  power  for  evil  that 
comes  from  the  omission  of  the  rioht  teaching, 
the  right  example,  and  the  right  work,  that 
more  self-denial  and  brotherliness  would  enable 
each  to  give. 

That  suicide  is  a  crime  in  the  eve  of  the  law, 
and  that  attempts  at  self-murder  are  crimes,  is 
admitted  ;  but  the  way  in  which  the  law  deals 
with  it  is  by  no  means  uniform,  and  the  general 
impression  left  on  society  is  that  the  journalist's 
expression  "  a  rash  act  "  rather  represents  its 
true  character  than  the  theologian's  word,  "a 
sin,"  or  the  lawgiver's,  "a  crime.  "  Suicides  to 
some  extent,  and  attempts  at  suicide  to  a  very 
larofe  extent,  would  certainly  diminish  were  it 
not  for  the  popular  impression  that  "  to  be 
remanded  to  receive  the  chaplain's  advice  "  is 
the  maximum  punishment  prescribed  by  the 
law.  The  standard  ol  right  and  wrong  with 
multitudes  is  siinj)ly  found  in  ihe  thought,  "  \\'h;il 
could  I  get  lor  it  il  caught.''  '  and  1  have  oiten 
found  that  to  show  would-be  suicides  what  the 
law  does  think  of  it  gives  them  the  first  aid  to 
looking"    at    the    act    in    a   more   true   li^ht.      1 


178  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

always  found  a  diminution  in  attempts  follow 
a  case  in  which  some  person  had  been  sent  from 
the  police-court  for  trial  at  the  vSessions,  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  undoubtedly  suicides  are 
suggested  and  made  more  common  by  the 
perfectly  unnecessary  reporting  of  such  acts 
in  the  papers.  The  gruesome  or  sentimental 
details  in  which  the  penny-a-liner  delights  in- 
variably suggest  a  similar  course  to  some  other 
silly  or  cowardly  persons.  If  only  those  cases 
were  reported,  whether  in  the  case  of  attempted 
suicide  or  divorce,  in  which  some  real  punish- 
ment followed,  the  offences  would  be  fewer,  as 
publicity  in  this  case  would  tend  to  deter  instead 
of  to  attract.  Taking  the  three  years  1880  to 
1883,  I  find  that  of  those  under  my  care  for 
attempting  suicide  twenty-one  only  went  on 
to  trial,  and  that  with  very  various  results. 
Two  are  marked  "  not  guilty,"  one  "acquitted," 
one  "bill  ignored,"  one  "no  bill  found,"  one 
"sent  to  workhouse,"  two  were  bound  over  in 
their  own  recognisance  to  be  of  good  behaviour, 
one  so  bound  with  the  addition  of  his  father's 
bond  for  ^50,  one  was  sentenced  to  one  day's 
imprisonment,  one  to  two  days',  one  to  four 
days'  hard  labour,  one  to  seven  days'  hard,  one 
to  fourteen  days',  one  to  six  weeks',  one  to  three 
months  without  hard  labour,  one  to  one  year'g 


SUICIDE— ITS    CAUSES  179 

hard  labour,  and  one  to  two  years'  hard  labour  ; 
the  two  last  sentences  being  from  the  Surrey 
Sessions,  which  at  that  time  had  the  reputation 
of  giving  too  severe,  as  the  Middlesex  Sessions 
had  of  giving  too  light,  sentences,  a  fact  very 
well  known  by  burglars  and  other  criminals, 
who  confined  their  operations  in  consequence 
very  much  to  the  Middlesex  side.  One  was 
sent  to  Broadmoor  on  another  indictment,  one 
to  Colney  Hatch  by  the  Home  Secretary's 
order,  and  one  was  hanged  on  another  indict- 
ment. 

Two  cases  of  girls  who  came  repeatedly 
under  my  care  from  intemperance  and  conse- 
quent, or  concomitant,  suicidal  mania,  will 
illustrate  a  type  that  requires  very  special 
treatment  and  is  least  of  all  helped  by  short 
imprisonments,  or  indeed  by  prison  treatment 
at  all. 

Sar^lh  Ann  R.,  with  at  least  five  aliases,  first 
came  under  my  notice  December  28,  1876,  she 
beinor  seventeen  at  the  time.  She  had  two 
months  in  default  of  bail  for  attempting  suicide, 
and  before  I  knew  her  had  had  one  month  for 
wilful  damaijfe,  one  month  for  beino'  drunk  and 
disorderly,  and  seven  days  for  quarrelling,  be- 
sides a  remand  and  four  months  in  default  of 
bail  for  attempting  suicide.      She  left  me   Feb- 


i8o  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

ruary  28,   1S77,  but  was  shortly  charged  twice 
at    Lambeth    with   attempting    suicide  and  re- 
manded   to    Horsemonger    Lane    Prison.       In 
May  of  the  same  year  she  came  here  in  default 
of  bail  for  two  attempts  at  suicide,  and  while 
here  for  six  months  she  tried  to  destroy  herself 
on  May  9th,  June  21st,  seven  or  eight  times  in 
July,  and  on  Noveml)er  4th,  the  day  before  her 
discharge.      Leaving  us  on  November  4th,  she 
was  charQ^ed  on  November  6th  with  beino;  drunk 
and  attempting  suicide,  and  had  a  month's  hard 
labour  in  Westminster,  followed  by  six  months 
here  in   default  of  bail.      She  tried  to  strangle 
herself  twice  while  in  prison,  although  on  the 
latter  of  the  two  occasions  she   was  in   hand- 
cuffs, in  consequence  of  its  being  necessary  to 
restrain    her    when    in    a    violent    mood.      On 
discharge    I    sent    her    to    the    Elizabeth    Fry 
Refuge,    but    she    was    dismissed    as    unfit   for 
service.      In  the  same  month  she  was  taken  up 
for    trying   to    get   poison,   and   twice   tried   to 
strangle   herself  in   the  police-court  cell.      Re- 
manded here,  I  got  Miss  Maulden,  the  police- 
court  missionary,  to  receive  her,  but  there  she 
threatened  suicide  and  left.      In   the  followino- 
month    she    was    charged   with    attempting    to 
drown    herself  and   making   three   attempts   in 
the  police-cell.     This  time  she  was  sent  to  the 


SUICIDE— ITS  CAUSES  i8i 

Surrey  Sessions  for  trial  and  received  six 
months'  hard  labour,  durino-  which  she  aeain 
tried  to  destroy  herself.  Thence  she  was  sent 
to  Fisherton  Asylum  as  insane.  She  remained 
there  for  nearly  three  years,  leavino-  July  14, 
i88r,  but  in  November  she  reappeared  in 
Clerkenwell  for  trying  to  poison  herself.  Here 
my  records  fail  me,  and  I  cannot  tell  what  was 
her  end.  Melancholic  and  hysterical,  and  with 
probably  a  bad  ancestral  history,  the  kind  of 
treatment  she  received  at  the  hand  of  the  law 
was  only  calculated  to  aggravate  her  mental 
twist.  Unfit  for  liberty,  she  might  yet  have 
outgrown  her  condition  of  mind  if  placed  in 
more  therapeutic  surroundings. 

The  other  woman  is  an  even  more  striking 
case  of  recidivism,  due  to  intemperance  and 
suicidal  tendencies.  With  obviously  good 
blood  in  her,  and  with  always  some  will  power 
and  self-respect,  she  was  better  equipped  both 
for  good  and  for  evil  than  the  case  described 
above,  and,  as  will  b.e  seen,  I  patiently  wrestled 
with  her  for  some  ten  years,  trying  all  manner 
of  ways  to  help  her.  In  fact,  she  was  alwa)'s 
in  my  mind  the  companion  picture  to  the  man 
whose  autobiogra[)hy  I  have  already  given.  Her 
portrait,  taken  with  a  sub-matron  of  a  home  in 
which  she  was,  is  now  on  my  mantlepiecc,  and 


i82  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

I  sometimes  amuse  myself  by  g-etting  people 
to  guess  which  of  the  two  is  the  woman  of 
good  character.  Her  name  was  Mary  C, 
though  she  generally  went  by  an  alias.  Her 
mother,  said  to  have  been  a  lady  by  birth, 
married  a  butcher,  who  died  young  through 
drink.  Her  mother  then  became  a  drunkard, 
and  her  eight  children  followed  her  example. 
One  drowned  herself  when  drunk,  and  another, 
whom  I  knew^  was  intemperate  and  immoral 
beyond  the  manner  of  Mary,  who  got  me  to 
try  to  reclaim  her.  She  was  seduced  at  the 
age  of  seventeen,  and  must  have  been  then 
very  g"ood  looking,  retaining  long  after  an 
excellent  carriage  and  figure.  I  found  her  in 
Clerkenwell  in  default  of  bail  for  attempting 
suicide  when  I  was  appointed  chaplain,  and 
learned  that  already  she  was  a  recidivist  and  a 
notorious  character,  having  had  twenty  or 
thirty  sentences  for  drunkenness  or  attempted 
suicide.  She  gave  her  age  as  twenty-three. 
She  seemed  much  influenced  by  what  I  said, 
and  on  discharge  I  sent  her  to  Mrs.  Herbert's 
excellent  home  in  Vauxhall.  She  did  well 
there  for  a  month,  but  left,  and  in  two  days 
was  in  Tothill  Fields  Prison  for  a  month.  I 
wrote  to  her,  met  her  on  discharge,  and  per- 
suaded   her    to    go    to    St.    James'    House    of 


SUICIDE— ITS   CAUSES  183 

Mercy  at  Fulham.  There  for  three  weeks, 
she  left  and  was  soon  at  Tothill  F'ields  for  a 
month  with  deHrium  tremens,  and  in  a  padded 
cell.  She  now  declined  my  offer  of  a  home, 
as  she  "could  not  keep  from  the  drink."  In 
two  days  she  was  in  Clerkenwell  for  a  week. 
Discharged,  but  soon  there  again  for  a  week 
(what  an  absurdity  and  an  iniquity  short 
sentences  are  in  such  a  case !).  Discharged, 
drunk  the  same  day,  and  sent  to  Westminster 
for  five  days.  Wrote  to  me  on  discharge,  but 
was  locked  up  after  writing.  Discharged  next 
Monday,  in  again  on  Tuesday,  attempted 
suicide  in  her  cell,  and  told  the  magistrate, 
"  I  can't  keep  away  from  the  drink  :  I  have 
such  a  dreadful  craving  for  it.  I  would  like 
your  worship  to  make  me  find  sureties  I  cannot 
find,  so  that  I  may  be  kept  in  prison  away 
from  the  drink."  So  she  came  to  us  for  three 
months  in  default  of  bail.  Then  I  sent  her  to 
Miss  Mauldcn's  to  see  if  work  could  be  found, 
as  she  would  not  go  to  a  home.  She  left  in 
six  days,  and  the  next  day  was  apprehended 
for  being  drunk  .and  riotous,  it  taking  six 
policemen  to  put  her  in  a  cell.  Got  a  month. 
Wrote  to  me  on  discharge,  started  to  see  me, 
but  got  drunk  on  the  way.  In  a  few  days 
she    had    another    fortnight.       Discharged    on 


184  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

Wednesday,  she  was  out  all  night  at  private 
night  houses,  and  was  taken  up  at  ten  a.m.  on 
Thursday  drunk,  disorderly,  and  assaulting  the 
police.  Sent  to  us  for  six  months.  Attempted 
suicide  in  her  cell  a  few  days  after  reception. 
Sent  her  on  discharge  to  Horbury  House  of 
Mercy,  thinking  a  removal  from  London  might 
be  helpful.  Did  well  there  for  a  month,  but 
then  twice  attempted  suicide,  and  left  on  July 
27th.  Apprehended  the  same  day  at  Doncaster 
for  beino-  drunk  and  smashing-  windows,  and 
was  sent  to  Wakefield  Prison  for  a  fortnight. 
On  August  1 7  she  was  in  Tothill  Fields  Prison 
for  a  month.  I  obtained  promises  of  pecuniary 
help,  and  looked  out  for  a  private  home  for 
her.  Saw  her  several  times  up  to  October  8th, 
when  she  sent  a  telegram  for  me  asking  a  lady 
to  come  and  receive  her  the  next  morning. 
But  when  morning  came  she  was  at  Marl- 
borough Street  for  being  drunk  and  disorderly 
and  assaulting  the  police.  She  also  attempted 
suicide  in  her  cell,  and  was  remanded.  She 
then  told  me  this  last  three  weeks  was  the 
longest  time  she  had  been  free  for  six  or  seven 
years.  She  now  got  three  months  in  default 
of  bail,  this  being  her  thirty-fifth  appearance 
at  Marlborough  Street  alone.  Then  I  got  a 
private  lady   in   South    Devon   to  receive   her, 


SUICIDE— ITS   CAUSES  185 

but  in  March  she  had  to  be  sent  away  for 
temper  and  dipsomaniacal  craving.  I  then  got 
her  taken  in  at  Bovey  Tracy  House  of  Mercy, 
but  she  left  on  April  24th.  It  happened  just 
then  that  the  owner  of  the  Argyle  Rooms  was 
prosecuting  me  (ov  libel  and  demanding  ten 
thousand  pounds  for  libelling  his  notorious 
establishment.  She,  amongst  other  prisoners 
male  and  female,  had  given  me  the  information 
on  which  1  had  based  what  I  had  written  con- 
cerning the  place  to  a  licensing  magistrate,  and 
as  the  other  side  found  she  had  disappeared, 
they  formally  in  court  challenged  me  to  pro- 
duce her.  I  had  no  idea  where  she  was,  but 
that  very  morning  I  saw  an  account  of  some 
one  of  a  different  name  being  locked  up  at 
Exeter.  My  lawyers  sent  down,  and  it  proved 
to  be  Mary.  They  brought  her  up,  and  she 
gave  effective  evidence  before  Lord  Chief 
Justice  Cockburn,  impressing  people  by  her 
quiet  and  modest  appearance  and  speech.  I 
then  put  her  into  the  Manchester  Street 
Refuge,  and  she  did  well.  She  then  was 
found  a  place  in  a  temperance  hotel,  and  made 
great  progress  in  penitence.  I  forget  wh)'  she 
had  to  leave  there,  but  for  safety  I  took  her 
in  my  own  house  for  a  fortnight,  and  then 
induced  my  friend,   the    Rev.   W.    Panckridge, 


i86  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

of  St.  Matthew's,  City  Road,  to  try  her  as 
housemaid.  She  got,  however,  unsettled,  and 
had  to  leave  after  six  weeks.  Then  St.  Agnes' 
Orphanage,  Chiswick,  tried  her,  but  she  left 
after  a  week,  on  December  27th,  and  was  ap- 
prehended the  same  night.  This  time  she  was 
released  on  her  own  recognisances,  but  re- 
appearing on  January  3rd,  and  charged  with 
being  drunk  and  twice  attempting  suicide  in 
her  cell,  she  had  three  months  in  default  of 
bail.  Half  way  through  this  term  she  had  an 
outburst  and  smashed  up  everything  in  her  cell. 
On  April  2nd  I  sent  her  to  the  Stone  House  of 
Mercy,  but  she  only  remained  five  days,  and 
was  locked  up  in  London  the  day  of  leaving. 
On  April  15th  she  had  two  months'  hard  labour, 
after  which  she  did  better,  and  by  perseverance 
I  got  her  into  a  state  that  seemed  to  justify 
another  and  more  costly  experiment,  and  so  on 
June  24th  I  sent  her  to  Ottawa,  with  an  intro- 
duction to  one  who  would  shepherd  her.  She 
got  a  place  as  chambermaid  in  an  hotel  at  ^40 
a-year.  Moving  afterwards  to  New  York,  she 
did  well  on  the  whole  in  America,  but  at  last 
had  a  slight  paralytic  seizure,  and  returned 
unadvisedly  to  England  in  October,  1882.  I 
placed  her  in  a  refuge  pending  a  situation  I 
found   for  her,  and  things  seemed  hopeful,  but 


SUICIDE— ITS   CAUSES  187 

when  she  visited  her  sister  to  try  to  reclaim 
her,  she  was  persuaded  to  have  a  glass,  and  the 
old  flame,  reviving  in  a  few  hours,  she  was 
taken  up  for  smashing"  the  window  of  a  public- 
house.  Sent  for  trial,  she  got  twelve  months. 
During  this  imprisonment  she  had  frequent 
"  breaks  out  "  ;  I  saw  and  helloed  her  on  dis- 
charge, but  soon  she  got  four  days,  though  she 
professed  to  have  lost  the  taste  for  drink,  and 
to  be  afraid  of  it.  Then  1  got  her  into  the 
Wharfedale  Refuge,  but  she  behaved  so 
strangely  they  were  afraid  to  keep  her.  Then 
I  got  her  into  Lady  Wilson's  Home,  to  which 
I  was  honorary  chaplain,  and  there  I  saw  her 
at  least  once  a  week.  She  fluctuated  between 
the  ways  of  penitence  and  bodily  and  mental 
disturbance,  and  at  last  (March  17,  1884)  she 
insisted  on  leavinof.  Goino-  to  the  house  of 
some  acquaintance  she  got  drinking  with  her, 
pawned  most  of  her  clothes,  and  was  taken  in 
an  unconscious  state  to  a  workhouse,  and  then 
was  charo-ed  with  beinir  drunk  and  assaulting 
the  police.  I  saw  her  and  sent  her  a  brother 
prison  chaplain  (Rev.  G.  P.  Merrick),  who  sent 
her  to  the  Sutherland  .Street  Refuge.  Upset 
there.  Left  April  26th,  and  on  April  30th  was 
remanded  for  assaulting  a  woman  when  drunk 
in  Piccadilly.      Her  sister  died  about   this  time 


i88  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

of  erysipelas,  after  a  life  of  immorality  and 
intemperance.  She  came  to  us  in  default  of 
bail,  and  Lady  Wilson  kindly  tried  her  again,  but 
after  giving  much  trouble  she  left  on  July  7th. 
She  got  five  days  on  July  30  as  Ellen  Bland- 
f(jrd,  and  two  months  on  August  6th  for  an 
assault  as  Ellen  Temple.  The  day  after  dis- 
charge she  got  seven  days.  I  saw  her  October 
24th,  and  sent  her  to  Mrs.  Wilkes'  Home. 
Thence  a  place  was  obtained  for  her  as  bath- 
room attendant  on  a  hospital  ship.  Left 
March  3rd  for  being  drunk  on  duty.  On  March 
29th  she  was  lined  for  drunkenness,  and  on 
March  26th  she  had  ten  days  for  being  drunk 
and  destroying  property  in  the  police  cell. 
On  April  8th  she  was  remanded  as  Ellen  Roths- 
child for  beino-  drunk,  smashino-  windows,  and 
destroying  a  rug  in  the  police  cell.  Got  four- 
teen days.  Out  April  27th.  Wrote  to  me 
May  14th  from  the  Home  of  Hope,  but  left 
there  May  29th  and  next  day  got  fourteen  days. 
Wrote  to  me  June  i8th  from  Holborn  Union. 
I  found  her  in  a  padded  room,  having  been 
sent  there  after  an  apprehension  for  attempting 
suicide  and  assaulting  and  biting  two  police- 
men. This  gave  her  six  weeks'  hard  labour. 
She  came  to  me  on  August  6th,  and  I  sent  her 
to    Mrs.    Wilkes'    again,   but    she    left    from   a 


SUICIDE— ITS   CAUSES  189 

quarrel  after  three  weeks.  Then  I  sent  her  to 
Woolwich  Refuge,  but  she  altered  her  mind  en 
route.  She  was  taken  up  five  or  six  times  that 
week.  Out  on  Wednesday,  with  us  again  on 
Saturday  for  attempting  to  strangle  herself  in 
the  police  cell  when  the  horrors  came  on  her. 
On  re-examination  she  was  also  charged  with 
an  assault,  but  discharged,  croino-  then  to  Miss 

*T>  t>  o 

Steer's  Home,  she  made  herself  obnoxious  to 
the  other  women,  and  left  on  December  30th. 
On  December  31st  she  got  five  days.  Miss 
Steer  tried  her  again,  but  she  had  to  be  dis- 
missed as  very  troublesome.  Next  1  heard  of 
her  at  Mrs.  Meredith's  Prison  Mission,  but 
aofain  cominir  into  Westminster  Prison,  she 
was  at  length  sent  abroad  by  Mr.  Merrick 
and  the  aid  of  the  Sheriff's  Fund.  From 
America  she  wrote  to  me,  and  soon  she  ob- 
tained a  place  as  nurse  in  a  hospital  at 
Savannah  at  ^50  a-year.  There  she  de- 
veloped a  talent  for  nursing  and  moved  on 
to  another  hospital,  and  she  seemed  to  be 
quite  able  to  get  and  retain  places.  Occa- 
sionally, from  th(;  increased  size  of  her  hand 
writing,  I  judged  she  was  not  Iree  h-(»in 
occasional  excitement,  but  the  last  I  heard  ol 
her  was  to  the  effect  that  she  was  doing  well, 
and  was  enofaoed  to  be   married   to  a   station 


iQo  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

master.  It  is  many  years  now  since  I  have 
heard  from  or  of  her,  and  whether  she  has 
settled  down  and  wants  to  cut  all  connection 
with  the  troublous  life  and  memories  of  Ene- 
land,  or  whether  (as  I  fear  is  more  probable) 
she  relapsed  and  died,  I  do  not  know.  Pardon 
the  length  of  this  case,  but  it  is  typical  of  many, 
and  may  serve  better  than  mere  figures  and 
tables  to  show  what  recidivism  means,  what 
part  drink  plays  in  filling  our  prisons,  and 
perhaps  incidentally  may  dispel  the  idea  that 
all  a  prison  chaplain  does  is  to  preach  dull 
sermons  and  to  perform  perfunctorily  the  mini- 
mum of  routine  duties. 


CHAPTER  IX 


PRISON      S  E  R  M  O  N  S 


PRISON  sermons  need  not  be  dull,  and  I 
have  no  reason  to  suppose  they  are  so  in 
greater  proportion  than  those  preached  outside. 
They  certainly  should  be  more,  and  not  less, 
interesting  since  the  preacher  knows  more  of 
the  inner  life  of  his  conorreoation  than  do  most 
ministers  of  religion  outside.  We  have  talked 
to  all  our  people  one  by  one  about  the  causes 
of  their  sins  ;  they  are  surrounded  with  people 
who  are  indignant  at  the  supposition  that  they 
have  any  sin  at  all.  Inasmuch  as  a  knowledge 
of  human  nature  as  it  is,  and  not  as  it  pretends 
to  be,  is  essential  for  any  prophet  or  priest,  I 
wish  it  were  possible  for  every  young  clergy- 
man to  be  obliged  to  serve  for  a  year  at  least 
as  a  prison  cha[)lain.  Whether  my  talks  or  my 
sermons    were    dull   of    course     I    cannot    say. 


lyi 


193  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

They  were  frequent  for  I  preached  daily  for  my 
ten  years,  though  of  course  only  obliged  to 
preach  on  Sundays  ;  and  they  were  short,  for 
the  whole  time  allotted  to  service  and  sermon 
was  only  about  half  an  hour.  As  to  the  cell- 
talks.  I  may,  perhaps,  retail  an  incident  which 
I  take  as  a  great  compliment.  A  man  of  some 
education  was  transferred  from  Coldbath  Fields 
with  a  batch  of  a  hundred  convicted  prisoners. 
I  gave  him  the  job  of  mending  books  in  the 
prison  library,  and  one  clay  going  in  to  get 
some  books  he  said,  "  May  I  speak  to  you, 
sir.'*"  "Certainly;  what  is  it.'*"  "I  want  to 
tell  you  something  I  heard  in  chapel  "  (wherein 
detected  speech  of  course  involves  punishment), 
"one  of  the  men  behind  me  said  to  another, 
'That  chaplain!'  'Wot  o'  'im  .? '  '  E's  a 
rum'un  'e  is  ;  'e  cum  into  my  cell  and  'e  sez, 
sez  'e,  "you  talk  straight  tome,  and  I'll  talk 
straight  to  you."  '  '  Ah,  and  'e  do  talk  straight, 
don't  'e  ?  I  think  'e's  one  of  us — turned,  you 
know  !  '  "  Complimentary,  as  showing  that  I 
had  not  left  the  impression  that  I  forgot  our 
common  humanity,  or  placed  myself  on  a 
pinnacle  and  them  in  a  pit  as  a  means  of 
promoting  useful  communion. 

Of  what  kind  were  the  daily  sermons  may  be 
judged   from   the    following,    which    happen    to 


PRISON    SERMONS 


193 


be  the   only   four  that  ever    I    wrote   out  after 
deHvery. 

CHRISTMAS  IN  PRISON. 
"  And  they  began  to  be  merry." — Luke  xv.  24. 

You  do  not  want  many  words  from  me,  dear 
friends,  this  morning.  The  hymns  we  have 
just  sung,  "While  shepherds  watched  their 
Hocks  by  night,"  and  "  Hark !  the  herald 
angels  sing,"  and  that  we  shall  sing  presently, 
"O  come,  all  ye  faithful,"  are  better  sermons 
than  any  I  can  preach,  good  in  themselves,  and 
brincrinor  memories  with  them  that  will  do  you 
good  if  only  you  will  let  them.  But  yet  I 
should  like  you  to  think  about  the  words  in 
the  te.xt.  The  first  is  "merry."  How  often  that 
word  is  uttered  to-day  !  How  many  are  saying 
now  all  over  the  world,  "A  Merry  Christmas 
to  you !  "  And  how  many  people  will  be  in 
many  ways  "merry" — some  of  them  God's 
ways,  and  some  of  them  the  devil's  ways 
—  to-day.  The  same  word  is  used  for  very 
different  states  of  mind,  for  it  is  little 
understood.  Now,  it  is  a  ^ood  thinLi  to 
be  merry  ;  there  is  nothing  the  good  God, 
the  loving  Father,  more  desires  than  that  His 
children  should  be  merry — in  the  right  way 
and   in    the  riirht  sense  of  the  word  :  and  there 

O 

14 


194  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

is  no  greater  cheat  of  the  devil  than  to  get 
people,  especially  at  this  time,  to  think  that 
merriment  can  be  caused  by  or  found  in  what 
is  unworthy  of  men.  Guzzling,  gorging,  beastly 
drunkenness,  and  worse  thino^s  still  are  beino- 
done  to-day  in  the  name  of  being  merry.  Why, 
one  of  the  officers  told  me  just  now  that  he 
never  saw  so  much  drunkenness  in  the  streets 
as  he  did  last  night.  In  one  public-house  near 
here  there  were  ten  people  serving  the  bar  as 
fast  as  they  could,  and  piles  of  bottles  as  well 
to  be  taken  away.  If  he  had  desired  to  enter 
that  house — I  hope  he  did  not — it  would  have 
been  almost  impossible  owing  to  the  crowd  of 
people  pressing  in. 

How  sad  this  is,  surely,  to  any  one  who  calls 
himself  a  Christian,  that  this  day  and  this  season 
should  be  so  marked  by  sins  of  the  body  !  This 
is  a  holy  and  a  happy  day  because,  as  on  this 
day  eighteen  hundred  and  seventy-nine  years 
ago  the  glorious  God,  the  Prince  of  Peace,  was 
born  of  the  blessed  Virgin  Mary,  having  taken 
a  body  in  order  that,  amongst  other  reasons, 
our  bodies  should  be  saved  as  well  as  our  souls, 
and  made  temples  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  which 
drunkenness,  gluttony,  and  impurity  should  be 
as  much  out  of  place  and  horrid  as  they  would 
be  if  done  in  temples  or  churches  made  of  stone 


PRISON   SERMONS  195 

and  sacred  to  God.  I  can  imagine  a  converted 
heathen  coming  from  Africa  or  India  to-day, 
and  rejoicing  because  he  saw  on  every  wall  and 
in  nearly  every  window,  and  falling  from  every 
lip,  the  word  "Christ."  See  how  much  they  love 
Him,  he  might  say.  And  then  some  one 
would  laugh  at  his  ignorance  and  say,  "  No, 
we  are  not  thinking  or  speaking  of  Christ — ^only 
of  Christmas,  which  is  a  very  different  thing !  " 
And  so  it  is,  God  forgive  us  all  ;  but  it  ought 
not  so  to  be.  Merry,  you  say,  this  is  no  merry 
Christmas  to  me,  alone,  depressed,  anxious, 
with  this  fog  filling  all  the  prison,  and  making 
it  impossible  to  read  a  word  to  pass  away  the 
time.  Well,  my  friends,  I  don't  say  it  is  easy, 
but  I  don't  say  it  is  impossible.  Why  were  the 
people  mentioned  in  the  text  merry?  The 
words  are  taken,  you  know,  from  that  grand 
old  story  of  the  son  who  was  first  prodigal  and 
then  repentant,  and  it  was  because  the  poor 
fellow  had  made  up  his  mind  at  last  to  shake 
off  the  devil's  chains,  to  cleanse  himself  from 
the  filth  of  the  pig-stye,  to  seek  a  more  satisfy- 
ing food  than  empty  husks,  and  to  return  to  his 
father,  and  because,  above  all,  he  had  not  only 
thouoht  of  doino-  this  but  had  done  it,  that  there 
was  joy  in  the  presence  of  the  angels  of  God 
over    the    sinner    that   repented,   and    that   the 


196  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

father,  the  friends,  and  he  "  began  to  be  merry." 
He  came  back  in  fear  and  trembHng,  with  a 
confession  and  no  excuse  upon  his  lips,  not 
swaggering  in  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 
saying,  "Well,  father,  here  I  am  back  again," 
as  if  nothing  had  happened,  and  no  pardon 
need  be  sought.  He  came  half  expecting  the 
does  would  bark  at  him,  and  the  door  be 
slammed  in  the  face  of  such  a  tramp  ;  half 
prepared  to  go  away  empty,  saying,  "What 
else  do  I  deserve  ?  I  have  made  my  bed  thus, 
and  I  must  lie  upon  it."  But  no,  the  father 
saw  him  afar  off —  and  these  were  eyes  of 
mercy  ;  he  ran  to  meet  him — and  these  were 
feet  of  mercy  ;  he  Hung  his  arms  around  the 
poor  wretch's  neck — and  these  were  arms  of 
mercy  ;  he  kissed  him — and  these  were  lips  of 
mercy  ;  he  spoke — and  these  were  words  of 
mercy  ;  and  so  may  it  be  to-day  for  you.  Oh, 
what  joy,  all  the  greater  for  being  unexpected. 
Do  you  wonder  they  began  to  be  merry  ? 
They  began  to  be  merry,  and  when  did  they 
cease  to  be  so  ?  Never,  my  friends  !  that  kind 
of  joy  will  last.  The  merriment  of  the 
drunkard,  the  glutton,  the  whoremonger,  the 
foolish,  ends  when  the  headache,  the  fine,  the 
punishment,  the  disease  or  failing  health,  the 
loss  of  respect  or  of  self-respect,  begins.     Only 


PRISON   SERMONS  197 

two  joys  can  last,  and  those  are  they  that 
spring-  from  a  good  conscience  or  from  a  true 
repentance.  Might  we  not  gain  these  ?  Might 
they  not  begin  to-day,  and  last  for  ever? 
Might  not  some  of  us  look  back  hereafter  to 
this  dark  and  lonely  Christmas  Day  and  say, 
"  Well,  after  all,  it  was  the  best  Christmas  I 
have  ever  known,"  for  as  we  have  just  read, 
"  the  people  that  walked  in  darkness  have  seen 
a  great  light  :  they  that  dwell  in  the  land  of 
the  shadow  of  death,  upon  them  hath  the 
light  shined  "  ;  and  when  most  we  felt  alone 
then  came  there  to  us  One  whose  name  was 
and  is  Emmanuel — ^God  with  us.  Do  you  not 
think  the  shepherds  might  have  grumbled  a 
litde,  and  felt  sad  all  alone  in  the  dark  fields, 
when  every  house  in  Bethlehem  was  full  of 
friends  and  joy  ;  and  yet,  when  a  few  years 
hence  they  looked  back  to  the  events  of  the 
first  Christmas  night,  they  would  have  said  : 
"  Dark  ?  why,  '  the  glory  of  the  Lord  shone 
round  about  us.'  Lonely.'^  why,  the  heavens 
opened  and  we  saw  'a  multitude  of  the  heavenly 
host.'  Sad?  why,  the  angel  brought  to  us  'good 
tidings  of  great  joy.'  "  Ah,  my  friends,  out- 
side is  much  merriment  that  will  end  only  in 
shame  and  punishment,  but  here  there  may 
be  (God  grant  there  may  be  !)  the  truer  merri- 


198  PRISONS   AND   PRISONERS 

ment  found  by  the  returning  son  and  the 
shepherds  of  Bethlehem.  Let  us  not  think 
of  what  we  have  lost  or  what  we  miss,  but 
rather  of  what  we  may  find  and  gain.  I  could 
make  you  all  cry,  and  cry  with  you  too,  as 
easily  as  possible,  with  pictures  of  what  you 
miss,  but  would  there  be  a  teaspoonful  of  good 
in  a  bucket  of  such  tears  ?  Rather  I  would 
point  you  to  the  source  of  all  true  and  lasting- 
joy — Emmanuel,  God  with  us — and  bid  you  as 
honestly  and  earnestly  as  I  bid  the  same  to  my 
wife  and  friends, 

"A  Merry  Christmas." 


THE  UNMANLINESS  OF  EXCUSES. 

"The  woman  gave  me  of  the  tree." — Gen.  iii.  12. 
"The  serpent  beguiled  me." — Gen.  iii.  13. 

Most  of  us  have  noticed,  my  friends,  that 
there  are  no  stories  children  like  better  to  hear 
than  those  about  what  their  parents  were  and  did 
when  they  were  children  themselves.  And  I 
suppose  it  is  from  the  same  kind  of  feeling  that 
we  so  often  turn  to  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis 
to  find  out  what  our  common  father  and  mother 
did,  and  what  kind  of  people  they  were.  Adam 
was  made  a  perfect  man  in  every  way  ;  none  of 
his  children  have  been,  or  shall  be  down  to  the 


PRISON    SERMONS  199 

end  of  time,  as  perfect  as  he.  In  body  I 
suppose  a  finer  made,  more  handsome,  more 
vigorous  man  than  any  since  ;  for  he  was  n(^t 
only  the  creation,  but  as  it  were  the  master- 
piece of  God  ;  in  mind  so  full  of  wisdom  and 
knowledge  that  others  since,  the  wisest  and 
cleverest  that  have  lived,  have  been  but 
children  to  him  ;  in  soul  such  a  saint  of  saints 
that  he  could  even  see  God  and  know  nothing, 
as  do  the  best  of  us,  of  the  earthborn  mist  of 
imperfection,  the  fog  of  sinfulness,  and  the 
wilful   cataract   of  sin   that  blinds  our  eyes. 

In  fact  he  was  a  man.  "  I  likes  a  mahn  as 
is  a  mahn,"  said  an  Oxfordshire  irardener  to 
me  one  day  ;  but  men  are  rare  ;  in  fact,  we 
can  say  there  have  been  two  men,  and  only 
two  on  this  earth,  and  one  of  them  ceased  to 
be  a  man.  Jesus  Christ,  we  know,  is  the  one 
Man  in  whom  no  unmanliness  was  or  could 
be,  and  He  is  now  and  for  ever  not  only  a 
man  but  the  Man.  Adam  was  a  man,  but 
ceased  to  be  a  man  when  he  fell.  Let  us  not 
take  it  for  granted  that  because  we  have  beards 
on  our  chins  and  wives  at  home,  tliat  therefore 
we  are  men.  To  be  a  man  is  a  thing  as  rare 
as  it  is"  grand.  "  Ouit  you  like  men,"  says 
St.  Paul,  as  if  he  would  say.  Understand  what 
a  man  is  meant  to    be   and   may   be  ;   be   that. 


200  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

and  then  neither  I  nor  God  want  anvthine 
more.  And  we  all  have  in  our  minds  some 
idea,  and  not  a  bad  one,  of  what  a  man  should 
be,  how  ever  little  we  try  to  be  men  ourselves. 
You  know,  for  example,  it  is  by  no  means  hard 
to  say  of  what  another  did — "  That  was  an 
unmanly  action."  To  inquire,  "  You  call  your- 
self a  man,  I  suppose?"  or  to  say,  "  If  he  is 
half  a  man  he  will  do  or  will  not  do  this  or 
that."  Yes,  it  is  easy  enough  to  go  about  the 
world  with  a  spyglass,  but  a  looking-glass  is 
what  we  want  to  discover  not  whether  our 
mate's  wavs  are  manlv,  but  whether  we  are 
anything   like  nien  ourselves. 

Certain  sins  and  wrong  acts  are  commonly 
admitted  to  be  unmanly.  To  strike  a  man 
when  he  is  down,  to  hit  a  woman,  to  attack 
a  man  two  to  one,  to  say  or  do  behind  a 
man's  back  what  you  dare  not  say  to  his 
face,  to  "  round  "  on  others  to  try  and  escape 
punishment  which  you  deserve  ; — all  these 
things,  or  more,  we  know  to  be  unmanly, 
unlike  Christ,  unlike  even  Adam  before  he  fell  ; 
but  what  I  want  you  to  see  is  that  all  sin,  and 
not  merely  certain  evil  acts  or  ways,  is  un- 
manly ;  that  no  mean  or  evil  thing  can  be  done 
without  loss  of  manhood.  Sometimes  people 
outside  ask  me  how  many  men  come  into  this 


PRISON   SERMONS  201 

place  in  a  year.  "Very  few,"  I  say.  "Oh,  I 
thought  it  was  chielly  a  male  prison."  "  So  it 
is,  but  do  you  think  all  males  are  men?  It  is 
generally  because  they  have  failed  to  be  men 
that  they  come  in,  and  here  perhaps  (God  grant 
it)  they  may  learn  to  become,  or,  at  any  rate, 
to  desire  to  become  men." 

Adam  fell  then  ;  he  sinned  and  therefore  and 
thereby  lost  his  manhood,  became  unmanly,  or, 
at  any  rate,  did  an  unmanly  thing.  What  does 
he  do  .'^  He  begins  to  make  excuses,  to  try  to 
shuflie  off  the  burden  and  ouilt  on  to  his  wife's 
shoulders,  as  if  part  of  his  sin  was  not,  doubtless, 
that  he  had  failed  to  keep  his  wife  in  order. 
"  The  woman  gave  it  me."  That's  all  very 
well,  Adam  ;  but  why  did  you  take  it  ?  Be  a 
man,  make  a  clean  breast  of  it  like  a  man,  and 
take  your  punishment  like  a  man,  and  don't 
sneak  out  of  what  you  have  done,  and  what  you 
deserve,  by  laying  the  blame  on  another.  Ah, 
you  can  see  it  was  unmanly  in  him,  but  stop 
and  ask  yourselves  whether  you  are  quite  in 
a  position  to  throw  stones  at  him.  Such  a 
common  trick,  that  of  making  excuses.  The 
oldest  habit  in  the  world.  All  of  us  take  after 
Adam  and  Eve  in  this,  and  man  might  l)e  dis- 
tinguished from  other  animals  by  describing 
him  as  an  animal  that  makes  excuses. 


202  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

Well,  at  any  rate,  you  say  he  did  not  tell  a 
lie  about  it.  No,  he  had  hardly  a  fair  chance 
of  that.  Perhaps  if  some  other  man  had  been 
living  he  might  have  lied  to  him  ;  but  he  knew, 
as  do  you  and  I,  that  it  is  useless  to  lie  to  God  ; 
but  he  made  excuses  ;  that  is  unmanly  enough, 
and  a  terrible  downfall  for  one  who  just  before 
was  a  man.  And  then  Eve  is  unmanly,  too,  by 
trying  to  throw  the  blame  on  to  another  :  "  The 
serpent  beguiled  me."  "  Unmanly,"  you  say  ; 
"how  can  a  woman  be  unmanly  ?  "  Manliness, 
the  perfection  of  manhood,  is  not  a  male  thing. 

Do  you  remember  when  Grace  Darling 
rowed  out  to  the  wreck,  while  men,  as  they 
thouoht  themselves,  were  afraid  to  venture  ? 
Do  you  remember  how  the  Virgin  Mary  stood 
beneath  the  Cross  of  Christ  when  one  Apostle 
had  denied  him,  and  all  but  one  were  afraid  to 
be  seen  near  Him?  Weak  woman,  as  we  may 
call  her,  often  puts  us  men  to  shame,  and  St. 
Paul  speaks  to  wives  as  well  as  to  husbands, 
when  he  says  "  Quit  you  like  men."  Bear  away 
then  from  the  story  of  our  first  parents  just  this 
one  thing  now — the  unmanliness  of  excuses, 
which  are  rarely  more  than  partly  true,  and 
often  quite  untrue.  Not  that  I  want  you 
to  abuse  or  accuse  Adam  ;  you  will  find 
instances   of  this   want  of  manliness  nearer  at 


PRISON   SERMONS 


203 


home  than  that.  How  often,  for  example,  have 
we  not  heard,  or  even  made,  the  excuse  for 
drunkenness  or  ahiiost  any  sin,  "It  was  bad 
company  that  did  it."  Is  it  honest.^  Is.  it 
manly?  Is  it  any  better  in  us  than  it  was  in 
Adam  and  Eve  to  try  to  shift  the  blame  from 
our  own  shoulders  ?  Where  is  this  bad  com- 
pany we  hear  so  much  of.'*.  Look  in  the  look- 
ing-glass if  you  want  to  find  it.  Like  goes  to 
like,  and  a  man  picks  out  for  his  companions 
and  friends  those  who  are  like  himself.  Thev 
tempted  you,  doubtless  ;  they  pressed  you  to 
drink,  as  Adam  and  Eve  were  tempted  and 
pressed  to  eat  ;  but  you  had  your  will,  and  your 
power  of  saying  No,  after  all,  and  need  not  have 
consented  any  more  than  your  first  parents. 
You  manage  to  say  No  if  a  man  invites  you 
into  a  church  ;  you  can  resist  the  temptation 
to  attend  a  night-school,  or  to  save  your  stray 
pence  ;  how  does  this  power  of  resistance  come 
suddenly  to  leave  you  when  invited  into  a 
public-house,  or  tempted  to  waste  your  money 
in  the  extra  glass  ?  Be  men,  then,  for  the 
future,  and  if  you  have  been  foolish  or  sinful 
bear  the  blame  or  punishment  yourselves  instead 
of  seekino-  some  one  else  on  whom  to  cast  it. 
Or  to  take  another  instance,  how  many  times 
a  day  do    I    not  hear  some  one  blaming  "  the 


204  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

cursed  drink."  Why  curse  the  drink?  It 
cannot,  will  not,  hurt  you  if  you  leave  it  alone. 
It  enters  you  only  by  your  own  choice  and 
will  ;  why  in  this  unmanly  way  blame  the 
drink  instead  of  the  drinking  or  the  drinker, 
that  is  yourself?  I  see  a  bottle  of  another 
kind  of  poison  in  the  chemist's  shop  ;  I  see  a 
tiger  safely  behind  bars  in  the  Zoological 
Gardens,  very  dangerous,  very  deadly,  no 
doubt,  if  I  let  them  out,  but  why  should  I  do 
so  ?  No,  my  friends,  give  even  the  devil  his 
clue  ;  neither  he  nor  the  drink  can  harm  us 
aorainst  our  will,  and  if  our  own  will  has  let 
either  of  them  into  ourselves,  let  us  not  be  so 
unmanly,  so  Adam-like,  as  to  shuffle  the  burden 
and  guilt  from  our  own  shoulders  where  it  must 
truly  lie. 

Determine  as  we  may  on  repentance  and 
amendment,  we  all  shall  doubtless  slip  or 
fall  again  in  some  way  or  other  ;  let  us 
resolve  by  God's  grace  that  if,  and  when, 
that  happens  we  will,  warned  by  the  example 
of  Adam  and  avoiding  the  unmanliness  of 
excuses,  which  we  see  availed  him  nothine, 
accuse  ourselves,  confess  our  personal  sin,  and 
blame  the  yielding  and  not  the  tempting  ;  and 
so,  as  the  Apostle  bids  us,  quit  ourselves  like 
men  by  following   the  example,  not  of  the  first 


PRISON   SERMONS 


205 


Adam,  but  of  the  second,  even  the  Perfect  Man 
and  Perfect  Pattern  of  manliness,  our  Lord 
and  Master,  Jesus  Christ — Amen.  So  may 
it  be. 

LIKES     AND     DISLIKES. 
"Christ  pleased  not  Himself." — Rom.  xv.  3. 

Some  of  you,  my  friends,  teach  me  more  than 
perhaps  I  teach  you,  and  certainly  more  than 
you  think.  One  of  you  the  other  day  taught 
me  in  his  own  way,  that  which  Christ  alone 
knows  fully,  that  is,  what  is  in  man,  what  are 
the  chief  reasons  that  make  him  act.  He  had 
got  into  terrible  trouble  through  the  old  and 
common  enemy — drink — and  when  you  hear 
this  I  suppose  about  two  hundred  of  you  find 
the  cap  fits  and  each  thinks  that  it  is  he  of 
whom  I  speak.  I  spoke  to  this  man,  as  you 
know  I  should,  of  the  folly,  the  misery,  the  sin, 
and  the  crime  of  drunkenness  ;  and  he.  of 
course,  agreed  to  all  I  said,  but  added,  when  I 
had  done,  "  But  then,  you  see,  I  likes  it."  What 
could  I  say  to  such  a  strong  argument  as  that  ^ 
Did  it  not  shut  my  mouth  ?  Well,  you  shall 
see.  No  doubt  of  all  the  excuses  that  are  made 
for  drinking,  and  even  for  drunkenness,  this  is 
about  the  truest  that  could  be  found,  except, 
perhaps,  that  other   which    I    took  for  my  text 


2o6  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

not  long  ago  —  namely,  "It's  the  fashion." 
Thousands  there  are,  doubtless,  who  would 
sing  from  the  bottoms  of  their  hearts  that  old 
song,  "I  likes  a  drop  of  good  beer,"  without 
ever  asking  themselves  whether  what  they  like 
is  to  be  their  only  rule  of  life  and  cause  of 
action. 

Let  us  see  what  makes  us  like  to  have  what 
we  like.  St.  Paul  tells  us  plainly,  what  we  all 
know  more  or  less  clearly,  that  there  are  in  us 
two  natures,  as  it  were,  one  pulling  us  up  to 
what  is  true,  and  pure,  and  kind  ;  and  the 
other  dragging  us  down  to  the  rightly  called 
dead  level  of  respectability,  and  farther  (if  we 
let  it)  into  the  strong  grasps  of  the  world,  the 
flesh,  and  the  devil.  Two  natures  in  man,  one 
like  to  God,  one  like  to  the  beast.  That  man 
has  made  a  beast  of  himself,  you  say,  as  you  see 
outside  a  public-house  one  lying  helpless  in  the 
mud.  True,  he  has  done  so,  but  what  I  want 
you  to  see  is,  that  without  going  so  far  as  he, 
we  yet  may  make  beasts  of  ourselves  by  listen- 
ing even  a  little  to  the  voice  of  our  lower 
animal  or  beast-like  nature,  instead  of  to  the  voice 
of  God  within  us,  which  ever  says,  "  Young- 
man,  I  say  unto  thee  arise,"  or,  "  Friend,  go  up 
higher."  Duty  tells  me  to  do  something,  but  I 
am   lazy  and  say   I   don't  like  it,  and  then  and 


PRISON   SERMONS  207 

there  I  mal-ce  myself  a  beast,  when  suiiply  by 
doing  my  duty,  however  hard,  I  might  prove 
that   I   was  a  son  of  God. 

Are  we,  then,  never  to  do  as  we  Hke  ?  Never 
to  indulge  ourselves  ?  I  don't  say  that,  no  man 
could  say  it.  Christ  did  often  what  He  liked, 
but  then  He  never  liked  what  was  evil,  un- 
worthy of  man,  or  unlike  to  God.  It  is  not 
wrong  to  do  what  we  like,  but  it  is  very  wrong 
to  take  "  I  like  it,"  or,  "  I  don't  like  it"  as  our 
only  rule  of  life,  and  very  wrong  again  to  do 
what  we  like  when  by  doing  it  we  injure  our- 
selves or  others. 

You  see,  of  course,  as  all  men  do,  that  it 
must  be  wrong  to  do  as  they  like  when  that 
injures  themselves,  to  indulge  in  drink,  for 
example,  till  body,  mind,  soul,  wife,  family, 
good  name,  all  are  injured  or  destroyed.  But 
vv'hat  men  don't  see  half  enough  is  that  we  are 
bound  to  keep  trom  what  we  like  because  it 
hurts  other  people.  "  Why  should  I  give  up  the 
drink  when  it  never  hurts  me,  just  because 
others  don't  know  when  to  stop  .'^  "  If  you  are 
too  wise  or  too  Christian  to  speak  thus,  plenty 
of  people  outside  these  walls  are  not. 

Now,  look  here  !  W  hen  I  was  a  boy  ladies 
and  gentlemen  used  shiny  visiting  cards.  Some 
pointed   out  lli.iL   diis  polish  was  caused  by  the 


2o8  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

poison  called  arsenic,  which  did  terrible  harm 
to  those  who  made  the  cards.  What  was  the 
result?  Did  men  say,  "Well,  but  the  little 
atom  of  arsenic  on  my  cards  can't  hurt  me,  and 
therefore  I  will  still  use  them  ?  "  No,  they 
were  wiser  and  better,  and  said,  "  Then,  if  it 
injures  others  I  will  give  it  up."  Or,  again, 
supposing  my  wife  wanted  to  trim  her  bonnet 
with  those  britrht  ofreen  ribbons  whose  colour  is 
due  to  arsenic.  I  should  say,  "  Don't  have 
ribbons  of  that  colour,  there  is  arsenic  in  them." 
"  But,"  she  might  say,  "  surely  the  little  drop  of 
arsenic  in  this  dye  can't  hurt  me  as  I  wear  the 
ribbons."  "  No  ;  but  it  does  hurt  those  who  dye 
the  ribbons,  and  therefore,  as  you  love  your 
brothers  and  sisters,  you  ought  not  to  encourage 
what  does  them  harm.  You  may  like  the 
colour,  and  it  will  do  you  no  harm,  but  as  it  does 
do  harm  to  them  you  will  give  up  your  likes." 
Just  so,  a  drop  of  beer  may  do  me  no  harm  and 
I  may  like  it  (I  used  to,  though  I  have  almost 
forgotten  what  it  tastes  like),  but  if  I  find 
hundreds  and  thousands  making  beasts  of 
themselves  in  one  way  by  drops  of  beer,  I 
won't  make  a  beast  ot  mysell  in  another  way 
by  taking  even  a  single  glass  just  because  I 
happen   to  like  it. 

One  more    illustration.      En^-land  was    once 


PRISON    SERMONS  209 

very  determined  to  put  down  slavery  in  her 
islands  in  the  West  Indies,  and  many  good 
men  and  women  took  a  pledge  never  to  taste 
sugar  while  it  was  grown  by  slaves.  There 
was  no  harm  in  sugar  to  them,  but  if  they 
refused  to  take  it,  though  they  liked  it,  while  it 
was  grown  by  miserable  slaves,  they  did  rightly, 
and  were  washing  their  hands  clean  of  slavery 
or  anything  to  do  with  it.  Just  so,  I  say 
men  are  right  in  saying,  "  I  won't  taste  a  drop, 
though  I  like  it,  while  this  miserable  slavery 
of  drunkenness  exists  in  our  land."  If  I  give 
up  things  glazed  or  coloured  by  arsenic  because 
a  few  clozens  might  be  poisoned  by  working  in 
it,  I  am  all  the  more  right  in  giving  up  drink, 
by  which  about  100,000  are  poisoned  to  death 
every  year  in  England.  If  our  grandfathers 
were  right  in  giving  up  sugar  while  it  was 
slave-grown,  you  and  I  are  all  the  more  right 
in  giving  up  that  which  brings  into  slavery 
600,000  drunkards  in  England  alone.  Shall  I 
crive  up  my  likes  in  a  small  matter,  and  not  in 
a  oreat  ?  Abstain  from  what  does  harm  to  but 
a  few,  and  continue  to  use  what  brings  misery 
to  millions  just  because   I   like  it? 

•'  But  then  you  see  I  like  it!  "  That  is  just, 
in  a  few  words,  the  reason  for  nearly  all  the 
ignorance,  sin,  crime,   misery,   sicknes.s,   death, 

15 


2IO  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

damnation,  in  the  world.  A  boy  knows  that 
he  ought  not  to  play  truant  from  school,  or  steal 
the  sugar  ;  but  then,  you  see,  he  likes  it.  A 
girl  brought  up  by  a  modest  mother  knows  well 
that  larkino-  with  the  lads  and  dressing  so  as  to 
make  every  idle  man  look  at  her  is  not  rioht. 
But  then,  you  see,  she  likes  it.  A  young  man 
knows  that  it  is  shameful  to  give  up  to  filth  the 
body  God  made  ;  but  then,  you  see,  he  likes  it. 
And  so  on  for  ever  and  for  each  of  us.  Whence 
come  quarrels,  scamped  work,  dishonesty,  pros- 
titution, and  all  the  horrid  list  of  evils  into 
which  no  man  need  put  himself?  Simply 
because  thousands  seek  only  their  own  desires 
like  brute  beasts,  and  never  think  the  elorious 
thoughts  that  only  men  and  angels  know  ;  "I 
should  like  to,  but  I  won't  because  it  is  wrone  ; 
never  mind  what  I  like,  but  let  me  see  and  do 
what  is  my  duty." 

Now  suppose  you  gave  up  your  beer,  though 
you  like  it,  and  get  no  harm  from  it  (though  not 
many  could  honestly  say  that),  because  you  don't 
want  to  be  ruled  by  your  likes,  and  do  want  to  dis- 
courage what  so  terribly  injures  your  brothers, 
would  you  make  a  grand  step  towards  manliness 
and  towards  God.  Mark,  I  don't  say  this  is  all 
you  need  ;  it  is  one  step,  not  the  whole  journey  ; 
but  I  do   say    this,  that    when   you   have  made 


PRISON   SERMONS  211 

one  step  the  next  will  be  easier  and  more  likely 
to  be  made,  and  I  do  say  this,  that  if  you  once 
in  one  thing  do  what  is  right,  though  you  would 
like  to  do  something  else,  you  are  most  likely, 
by  the  grace  of  God,  to  be  led  on  from  strength 
to  strength  till  your  one  great  thought  is  ever  this, 
"  What  is  my  duty  ?"  and  never,  or  rarely  this, 
"Do  I  like  it?"  The  motto  of  Christ's  life 
was  "  I  please  not  Myself"  The  motto  of  yours 
and  mine,  I  fear,  is  rather,  "  I  mean  to  please 
myself"  Well,  as  you  say,  please  yourself,  God 
Himself  cannot  change  your  nature  unless  you 
try  yourself,  but  if  you  do  call  yourself  a 
Christian,  if  you  do  want  to  make  your  life  like 
that  beautiful  and  perfect  one  which  you  find 
in  the  Gospels  ;  if  you  want  to  please  yourself 
really,  and  not  merely  in  a  bad,  unsatisfactory 
way,  and  that  for  a  few  moments  only  ;  why, 
then  I  say,  don't  make  a  beast  of  yourself; 
don't  think  all  you  have  to  consider  is  whether 
you  like  a  thing  or  not,  but  do  be  willing  to 
rein  in  your  desires,  to  conquer  your  lusts  and 
passions,  to  love  duty,  to  give  up  things  for  the 
sake  of  others,  to  live,  in  a  word,  like  a  man. 
"  Live  like  a  man,"  you  say;  "don't  I  do  that 
now  ?  "  Certainly  not,  my  brother,  unless  you 
try  hard,  and  always  live  like  the  Perfect  Man, 
even  the   Man  who  is  our  God,  Jesus  Christ, 


212  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

of    Whom     it     was     said,    "He   pleased     not 
Himself." 

WHO  CAN  STAND  THE  FIRE? 

"Who  among  us  shall  dwell  with  the  devouring  fire? 
who  among  us  shall  dwell  with  everlasting  burnings?  He 
that  walketh  righteously  and  speaketh  uprightly  ;  he  that 
despiseth  the  gain  of  oppressions,  that  shaketh  his  hands 
from  holding  of  bribes,  that  stoppeth  his  ears  from  hearing 
of  blood,  and  shutteth  his  eyes  from  seeing  evil.  .  .  .  Thine 
eyes  shall  see  the  King  in  His  beauty ;  they  shall  behold 
the  land  that  is  very  far  off." — Isa.  xxxii.  14,  15,  17. 

Many  read  and  quote  the  Bible  as  if  the  only 
virtue  it  inculcated  was  that  of  Faith.  Few 
notice  how  much  of  its  history,  how  many  of 
its  precepts,  are  directed  to  the  impressing  on 
us  moral  rather  than  spiritual  duties  ;  how  the 
duties  of  citizenship  are  held  up  to  us  as  a 
means  of  serving  God  in  our  generation  as  real 
as  that  of  worship.  Prophets  are  recognised  as 
foretellers  in  the  name  of  God  ;  men  fail  to 
observe  how  more  frequently  they  are  forth- 
tellers,  and  their  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord"  refers 
to  some  present  duty,  political,  civil,  or  sanitary  ; 
or  in  the  more  definitely  spiritual  sphere  of 
action  to  the  conviction  of  sin,  the  necessity  of 
repentance,  confession,  and  amendment,  rather 
than  to  some  future  hope  or  promise.  Another 
point    that    commonly    escapes    notice    is    that 


PRISON   SERMONS  213 

when  a  portrait  of  the  man  after  God's  own 
heart,  the  man  justified  before  Him,  is  given, 
the  test  of  character  is  derived  largely,  or  even 
chiefly,  from  his  discharge  of  his  duty  to  his 
neighbour.  In  several  places  this  portrait  is 
sketched  in  the  form  of  a  question,  with  the 
answer  given,  that  includes  rules  for  human 
conduct,  such  rules  referring  mainly  to  points 
of  moral  rectitude.  Let  us  take  for  example 
this  striking  passage  which  is  our  text.  The 
foreteller  of  the  Incarnation  or  the  Passion  is 
here  the  forthteller  of  how  the  new  man  is  to 
be  put  on  and  the  old  man  crucified,  and  to 
those  who  would  hope  for  the  Beatific  Vision, 
not  a  life  of  ecstatic  worship  or  unworldly 
meditation  is  propounded,  but  six  very  practical 
rules  of  life  given  to  guide  him  in  the  shop,  in 
the  street,  in  the  law-court. 

"  Who  amon«"  us  shall  dwell  with  the  devour- 
inir  fire  ?  Who  amono-  us  shall  dwell  with  ever- 
lasting  burnings.'*"  is  the  question,  unlike  in 
form,  but  perhaps  identical  in  import,  with 
those  in  other  places  :  "  Who  shall  ascend  the 
hill  of  the  Lord,  and  who  shall  rise  up  in  His 
holy  place  ? "  or  the  particular  precepts  that 
follow  "He  that  would  love  life  and  see  i^ood 
days."  No  doubt  to  many  the  idea  of  that 
state   of  loss  and  pain  that  we  call  hell  is  at 


214  PRISONS   AND    PRISONERS 

once  and  exclusively  suggested  by  the  phrases 
"devouring  fire"  and  "everlasting  burnings," 
but  a  more  comprehensive  thought  will  remind 
us  that  the  idea  of  fire  is  quite  as  often  con- 
nected with  the  description  of  heaven  as  with 
that  of  hell,  and  that  chiefly  it  comes  as  express- 
inof  in  human  lano"uaoe  somethino-  of  the  nature 
and  the  manifestation  of  God  Himself,  "  Our 
God  is  a  God  of  fire."  The  presence  of  God 
expressed  under  this  image  is  here  and  here- 
after a  joy  to  some,  a  torment  to  others,  accord- 
ing to  what  they  choose  their  conduct  and 
character  to  be.  Public  worship  to  one  is  a 
tedious  conventionality  at  best ;  to  another  in 
the  same  building  a  refreshment,  an  inspiration, 
an  ennoblement.  The  same  inspiration  or  holy 
thought  is  welcomed  by  one  and  resented  by 
another.  So  the  Vision  even  to  the  best  is 
unsupportable  (think  of  Moses  on  Sinai,  of  the 
apostolic  witnesses  of  the  Transfiguration,  of 
Saul's  journeying"  to  Damascus)  without  the 
training  of  a  practice  of  the  Presence  of  God 
which  renders  its  veiled  splendour,  its  afterglow, 
more  bearable.  A  careful  reading  of  the  whole 
of  this  passage  from  Isaiah  will  serve  to  reveal 
the  laws  that  duty  to  one's  neighbour  is  the  test 
of  duty  towards  God,  and  that  moral  conduct 
enables  us  the  better  to  contemplate  the  possi- 


PRISON   SERMONS  215 

bility  of  being  able  to  stand  the  Presence  of  the 
otherwise  unsupportable  glory.  Who  among  us 
can  face  this  fire  ?  The  answer  gives  the  por- 
trait of  a  man — not  that  of  a  mere  human  being. 
And  the  portrait  is  sketched  in  six  strokes.  Six 
rules  of  life  give  the  scaffolding  whereby  shall 
be  reared,  according  to  the  design  of  the  Great 
Architect,  the  tower  of  a  manly,  because  godly, 
and  godly  because  manly,  life  that  shall  stand 
four-square  to  all  the  winds  that  blow, 

1.  "He  that  walketh  righteously."  He  con- 
descends to  no  tricks,  whether  of  trade  or  of 
politics.  He  will  not,  because  he  cannot  with 
the  ideal  and  the  hope  before  him  take  a  mean 
and  murky  advantage  of  the  absence  ot  an 
observing  eye,  whether  of  employer,  or  cus- 
tomer, or  wife,  or  moral  teacher.  Nor  can  he 
take  advantage  of  the  ignorance  of  any,  for  the 
upright  walk  constrains  him  to  help  and  not  to 
hinder  his  brother.  No  '  guarantee  for  fidelity 
in  business  '  is  necessary  for  him. 

2.  "He  speaketh  uprightly."  His  word  is 
his  bond,  and  is  speedily  known  as  such.  The 
oath  required  of  him  as  a  witness  in  a  law-court 
finds  him  no  more  bound  after  it  than  before  it 
to  tell  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing 
but  the  truth.  He  takes  it,  as  he  may  also  take 
the    pledge    of    abstaining    from    intoxicating 


2i6  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

liquors,  not  as  needful  for  his  own  sake,  but 
to  enable  him  to  aid  the  infirmity  of  others. 
Uprightly,  also  he  rebukes  evil,  and  thus  avoids 
the  complicity  of  silence.  He  cannot  cant.  He 
confesses  Christ  before  men,  since  else  he  finds 
no  possibility  of  the  uprightness  that  animates 
his  acts  whether  for  or  before  man  or  God. 

3.   "He  despiseth  the  gain  of  oppressions." 
He  dares  not  make  excessive  profit,  or  take  the 
interest    which     becomes    usury,    for    he    sees 
therein  his  brother's  loss  rather  than  his  own 
temporary  and   injurious   gain.       None  of   the 
meaner  maxims  of  trade  will  be  used  to  salve 
the  conscience  that  stings  and  reproaches  when 
the  possibility  of  something  underhand  or  over- 
reaching is  momentarily  presented.      Not  only 
short  weights,  lying  advertisements,  goods  not 
up  to  sample,   or  work  perfunctorily  done,  but 
also  the  Sunday  shopping  which  enfeebles  the 
body,  clouds  the  mind,  and  burdens  the  con- 
science of  those  he  would  force  to  serve  him, 
are  despicable.      He  groans  at  the  thought  of 
how  traders  of  his  nation  for  gain  stupefy  with 
opium,  or  madden  with  spirits,  the  tribes  and 
nations  with  whom  they  come  in  contact. 

4.  "He  shaketh  his  hand  from  holding  01 
bribes."  As  St.  Paul  at  Melita  shook  off  the 
viper    into    the    fire,   so    with    a    shudder    that 


PRISON    SERMONS  217 

integrity  has  made  instinctive  he  abhors  the 
purchase  money  of  iniquitous  silence,  or  speech, 
or  action,  or  inaction.  Grant  that  now  states- 
men and  judges  are  not  bribable — at  least  in 
coin  ;  grant  that  "every  man  has  his  price"  is 
not  now  as  true  as  ever  it  appeared  to  be  in 
many  circles  and  stations ;  yet  Bribery  Acts 
have  been  needful  in  recent  years.  "  Don't 
tell  mother,  and  you  shall  play  with  my  doll." 
"  Don't  let  the  master  know,  and  I'll  give  you 
my  knife."  "  Keep  it  dark,  old  fellow,  and  I'll 
make  it  worth  your  while."  "  I  made  it  all 
riofht  with  the  foreman."  How  we  know  these 
voices  proceeding  from  the  shop,  the  school, 
and  even  the  nursery !  How  can  a  child  of 
light  "  keep  it  dark  "  ?  Why  should  you  make 
it  all  wrong  with  your  conscience  by  "making- 
it  all  right  "  with  some  one  else  ? 

5.  "He  stoppeth  his  ears  from  hearing  of 
blood."  There  is  a  beast  within  us  that 
rejoices,  as  there  is  an  angel  within  us  that 
shudders,  at  the  very  sound  or  suggestion  of 
cruelty.  "How  sad,"  said  Queen  Victoria, 
"  that  there  should  be  any  need  of  a  Society  for 
the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Children  !  "  True, 
but  the  revelations  of  that  society  are  in 
volumes,  and  show  how  neither  education  nor 
the  profession  of  religion   is  the  bar  it  should 


2i8  PRISONS   AND   PRISONERS 

be  to  the  lust  for  cruelty,  which  is  sometimes 
the  substitute  for  lust  of  another  kind,  and 
sometimes  only  its  symptom  and  its  incitement. 
Bull-baiting  is  extinct,  cock-fighting  nearly  so  ; 
but  who  pretends  that  our  lesser  brethren  need 
not  still  the  protection  of  the  Society  for  the 
Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals  ?  We  may 
think  the  clamour  for  the  abolition  of  vivisection, 
of  corporal  punishment,  of  the  death  penalty, 
are  not  wholly  justified,  but  even  if  exagger- 
ated in  aim  as  well  as  often  in  diction,  they  may 
be  a  necessarv  safeguard  aoainst  a  recrudes- 
cence  of  the  savage  element  in  our  nature.  It 
is  not  because  the  editors  of  professedly 
"respectable"  papers  believe  in  the  desir- 
ability of  stopping  men's  ears  from  the  hearing 
of  blood  that  they  devote  their  columns  and  the 
largest  type  upon  their  contents  bills  to  the 
highly  unnecessary  details,  or  the  penny-catch- 
ing advertisement,  of  the  last  awful  murder. 

6.  "  He  shutteth  his  eyes  from  seeing  evil." 
Here  come  the  wretched  newspapers  again, 
and  many  of  our  playwrights  and  theatre 
owners,  making  dirt  more  sticky  in  pursuit  of 
gain  and  offal  more  stinking  by  their  canting 
and  hypocritical  defence  of  it  by  the  prostitution 
of  the  names  of  Literature  and  Art.  They 
printed,    most    of   them,    the    protest    of   some 


PRISON    SERMONS  219 

hundred  members  of  Parliament  against  the 
publication,  for  no  moral  but  much  mercantile 
purpose,  of  highly  unnecessary  and  plainly 
injurious  details  of  divorce  and  other  unsavoury 
cases  ;  but  when  next  some  spicy  or  sensational 
copy  could  be  made,  the  evil  to  which  they 
opened  their  eyes  was  that  of  not  selling  as 
many  copies  as  their  rivals  in  journalism.  Not, 
of  course,  that  the  consumers  of  this  garbage  or 
of  this  tainted  food  are  without  their  guilt,  as 
well  as  the  producers.  Watch  who  and  what 
are  they  who  cluster  round  certain  stationers', 
booksellers',  and  photographers'  shops,  and 
wonder  if  they  ever  knew  or  felt  the  import- 
ance of  keeping  a  watch  over  their  eyes  and  ol 
avoiding  that  in  the  paper  or  in  the  window 
which  a  momentary  glance  will  show  to  be  in 
the  class  of  things  which  before  have  injured 
their  minds  or  taken  the  bloom  off  their  purity. 
But  those  that  keep  these  rules  before  their 
eyes,  that  know  them  as  the  indispensable  con- 
ditions of  the  upright  life,  what  of  them  ? 
Isaiah,  who  has  been  the  forth  teller,  now 
becomes  the  foreteller,  with  the  gracious  pro- 
mise from  God,  "  They  shall  see  the  King  in 
His  beauty;"  they  shall  have,  even  now  and 
here,  some  foregleam  of  the  transforming  in- 
ward  vision  of  Christ  and   the   Father  by   the 


220  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  within  them.  "And 
the  land  which  is  very  far  off."  The  land  of 
glory  and  of  peace,  of  peace  in  men  and  towards 
men,  because  first  the  glory  of  God  has  been 
sought.  Our  land,  our  world,  hardly  now 
corresponds  to  this  name,  even  in  shadow. 
Hood,  the  poet,  recollecting  how  as  a  child  he 
looked  from  his  cot  through  the  window,  and 
thought  that  heaven,  with  its  starry  lights, 
rested  on  the  tops  of  the  pine-trees  of  the 
garden,  writes  :  "  To  me  is  little  joy  to  think 
that  heaven  seems  farther  off  than  when  I  was 
a  boy."  Yet  this  world  is  salvable  and  trans- 
formable after  all.  Each  can  do  his  own  part, 
beginning  at  his  own  heart,  whence  light  will 
radiate  to  an  ever-increasinof  circumference. 
Deforniata  7'eformare ;  reforuiata  transfoinnare ; 
transfornmta  conforinare :  to  reform  by  repent- 
ance that  which,  by  yielding  to  temptation  from 
within  or  without,  has  been  deformed  ;  by 
manly  perseverance  in  well-doing  to  transform 
into  a  shape  of  greater  beauty  and  light  that 
which  by  grace  has  been  reformed  ;  and  finally, 
partly  here,  more  in  Paradise,  and  most  in  the 
fire  and  everlasting  splendour  of  "that  perfect 
vision  of  God's  face  which  we,  for  lack  of 
words,  call  heaven,"  to  conform  his  life  to  the 
ima^e  of  "  the  Lord  our  Ritrhteousness." 


CHAPTER  X 

-     TEN    DESIRABLE    REFORMS. 

TEN  desirabilities  I  gave  some  years  ago 
as  pointing  out  the  direction  in  which 
both  mercy  and  justice  called  for  progress  in 
prison  reform.  Since  then  the  Prison  Com- 
mission has  been  held,  and  in  some  respects 
its  report  advocates  what  I  previously  had 
recommended.  These  are  not,  of  course,  all 
the  points  in  which  reform  is  possible  and 
desirable,  but  they  seem  to  me  those  that 
might  be  adopted  without  delay  or  difficulty. 
Briefly,   they  are  these  : — 

I.  "  More  classification  of  prisoners  and 
more  variety  in  their  treatment.  The  worst 
criminals  are  not  punished  with  sufficient 
severity,  while  some,  especially  first  offenders, 
are  subjected  to  unnecessary  degradation."  So 
I  wrote  in  1893.  Amongst  the  "principal 
recommendations"  of  the   Departmental  Com- 


222  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

mittee  on  Prisons  are  these  :  "  Discretion  to  be 
reserved  to  prison  authorities  to  distinguish 
between  first  offenders  and  habitual  criminals 
who  are  caught  for  the  first  time."  The 
worship  of  literalism  and  red  tape  could  no 
further  go  than  in  treating  equally  under  the 
First  Offenders'  Act  some  old  Faein  or  noto- 
rious  procuress  who  has  long  evaded  capture 
and  a  G.P.O.  lad  who  has  stolen  under  the 
pressure  of  a  racing-sharp  to  meet  the  debt 
of  "honour,"  or  a  servant-girl  who  has  been 
once  dishonest  to  adorn  or  sustain  her  sweet- 
heart. Again,  the  recommendation  "prisoners 
sentenced  primarily  for  drunkenness  should  be 
specially  treated  in  prisons  or  parts  of  prisons 
set  apart  for  them  "  is  what  I  have  constantly 
urged  by  voice  and  pen  for  the  last  twenty 
years. 

2.  Prohibition  of  imprisonment  of  children 
under  sixteen,  save  in  reformatories  or  special 
houses  of  detention.  The  Committee  agree,  re- 
commending that  "juveniles  should  be  specially 
treated  in  prisons,  and  not  be  subjected  to 
ordinary  prison  discipline  and  regulations." 
But  the  special  treatment  would  better  be 
given  in  an  establishment  not  a  prison,  nor 
calleci  by  that  name.  The  obsolete  names  of 
House  of  Correction  and   House  of  Detention 


TEN    DESIRABLE    REFORMS  223 

avoided  the  error  of  non-classification  that  the 
use  of  the  one  word  "  prison  "  suggests. 

3.  Reduction  of  the  maximum  hard  labour 
sentence  to  eighteen  months,  which  is  practi- 
cally and  for  most  all  that  they  can  stand 
without  mental,  if  not  physical,  injury  under 
the  conditions  of  separate  confinement,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  a  progressive  system  of 
sentences  for  repeated  offences.  That  a  month 
should  be  the  maximum  for  drunken  and  dis- 
orderly conduct  is  futile  and  harmful.  I  knew 
one  case  of  nine  separate  sentences  of  a  month 
being  given  to  the  same  person  in  a  year. 

4.  The  encouragement,  though  quite  against 
the  traditions  and  tendencies  of  the  Home 
Office,  of  voluntary  work,  and  of  visits  from 
outside,  not  only  after  the  fashion  of  Elizabeth 
P^ry,  but  by  the  delivery  of  lectures  and  the 
holding  of  classes  on  moral  and  social  subjects. 
So  I  am  olad  to  see  the  Committee  advise 
"  Selected  preachers  should  be  brought  in  from 
the  outside."  "Greater  facilities  to  be  given 
to  the  representatives  of  discharged  prisoners' 
aid  societies  for  seeing  prisoners  before  dis- 
charge." This  is  not  all  1  meant,  but  it  is  a 
step  towards  it. 

5.  The  censorship  of  the  Press  in  the  matter 
of  the  publication  of  the  unnecessary  and  cor- 


224  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

rupting  details  of  divorce  proceedings  and 
suicides  and  of  betting  lists.  Editors  cannot 
be  the  moral  prophets  of  the  age  while  they 
keep  a  sporting  prophet,  and  while  in  bondage 
to  advertisers  and  the  lowest  classes  of  their 
readers.  Some  crime  is  State-caused,  much  is 
Paper-caused. 

6.  The  curtailment  or  abolition  of  the  rights 
of  evil  parents  to  wrong  their  children  by 
claimino-  their  return  home  on  dischargfe  from 
industrial  schools  and  reformatories.  I  have 
known  fathers  and  mothers  who  have  caused 
their  children  to  be  wrongfully  accused  in  order 
that  they  might  be  sent  to  industrial  schools, 
and  have  claimed  them  again  as  soon  as  they 
have  become  marketable.  Much  has  been 
effected  in  this  direction  by  the  Poor  Law 
Act,  1889,  Section  I,,  which  enables  guardians 
of  the  poor  to  adopt,  i.e.,  to  assume  entire 
control  of  a  child  deserted  by  its  parents  until 
it  reaches  the  age  of  sixteen  if  a  boy,  and 
eighteen  if  a  girl ;  and,  further,  that  "  where  a 
parent  is  imprisoned  under  a  sentence  of  penal 
servitude,  or  imprisonment  in  respect  of  an 
offence  committed  against  a  child,  this  section 
shall  apply  as  if  such  child  had  been  deserted 
by  that  parent." 

7.  A  capitation  grant  should  be  allowed  to 


TEN    DESIRABLE   REFORMS  225 

all  well-regulated  and  inspected  societies  and 
institutions  that  provide  for  children  who  are 
destitute  or  in  peril.  This  is  practically  now 
the  case  with  regard  to  industrial  schools 
certified  by  the  Home  Office,  and  homes  cer- 
tified by  the  Local  Government  Board,  as 
regards  children  sent  there  by  the  guardians ; 
but  I  would  extend  the  principle  and  have  all 
child-saving  homes  inspected  and  aided  if 
found  satisfactory.  Government  inspection 
would  be  feared  by  none  save  those  who 
ought  to  fear  it.  It  would  cause,  no  doubt, 
the  extinction  of  some,  but  the  fit  that  survived 
should  be  recogrnised  as  deserving  well  of  the 
State,  whether  technically  certified  as  now  or 
not. 

8.  A  State  grant  to  all  discharged  prisoners' 
aid  societies  which  are  properly  organised  and 
supervised.  This,  which  I  advocated  long  ago, 
is  now  being  offered  to  all. 

9.  In  every  county  a  refuge  and  testing- 
place  for  males  and  females  on  their  discharge 
from  prison.  They  are  no  more  fit  for  liberty 
sometimes  than  a  hot-house  plant  is  fit  to  be 
planted  out  in  the  open  air ;  a  hardening-off 
place  is  necessary  for  both.  I  am  glad  to  find 
that  the  Committee  recommend  "  that  a  small 

local  prison  might  be  selected  for  an  experiment 

16 


226  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

as  an  intermediate  prison  between  discharge 
and  release."  It  would  be  a  revival,  not  a 
novelty,  for  the  plan  was  tried  earlier  in  this 
century  under  Sir  Walter  Crofton  in  Ireland, 
where  two  intermediate  prisons  were  estab- 
lished, one  of  which  was  the  Convict  Farm  at 
Lusk,  where  the  inmates  were  employed  in 
agriculture  under  conditions  very  different  from 
those  of  an  ordinary  gaol  ;  while  in  England 
until  comparatively  recent  years  we  had  the 
Refuge  for  female  convicts  at  Winchester. 

lo.  Lastly,  but  of  great  importance,  there  is 
the  shepherding  of  ex-prisoners  on  discharge. 
Many  more  must  be  led  or  persuaded  to  say  to 
chaplains  or  the  secretaries  of  prisoners'  aid 
societies,  "  You  may  send  me  one,  or  so  many 
cases,  in  the  year,  and  I  will  find  the  money, 
the  time,  and  the  labour  to  do  my  best  for 
them."  I  took  not  a  few  into  my  own  house 
while  a  prison  chaplain,  and  found  some  friends 
to  be  shepherds,  though  I  found  that  amiable 
ladies  or  benevolent  employers  of  labour  would 
frequently  gush  over  the  desirability  of  giving 
a  fresh  chance  to  some  penitent  girl  or  young 
man  on  leaving  a  prison  or  a  home,  yet  usually 
discovered  exceptional  circumstances  in  their 
own  homes  or  businesses,  that  forced  them  to 
exercise    self-denial   by  refusing    a    request    to 


TEN    DESIRABLE    REFORMS  227 

take  this  or  that  particular  case  under  their 
care.  Yet  personal  service  is  the  lesson  of  the 
Incarnation,  and  the  matter  is  one  that  affects 
the  whole  social  life  of  England.  We  are 
judged  by  our  worst  as  well  as  by  our  best, 
and  our  worst  would  not  be  what  they  are  if 
the  best  did  their  duty  to  them. 


L 


CHAPTER  XI 


AMERICAN    PRISONS 


PEOPLE  imagine  in  an  optimistic  way  that 
Prison  Reform  has  progressed  uniformly 
and  rapidly  all  over  the  world.  This  is  happily 
true  to  a  certain  extent,  and  is  due  largely  to 
international  concrresses  and  conferences  that 
have  been  held  periodically ;  but  it  is  also 
untrue  in  some  particulars  and  in  certain 
places.  People  also  in  England,  notably  in 
the  recent  discussions  over  the  Prisons  Bill, 
are  inclined  to  maintain,  from  a  plenitude  of 
ignorance,  that  our  prisons  are  worse  than 
those  of  other  countries,  of  America  for  ex- 
ample. The  value  of  both  these  imaginations 
is  discounted  by  what  I  proceed  to  detail. 
There  is  before  me  the  Fifty-Second  Annual 
Report  of  the  Prison  Association  of  New  York. 
It  is  for  the  year  1896.  For  more  than  half  a 
century,    therefore,    earnest    men    and    women 


AMERICAN    PRISONS 


229 


have  been  labouring-  in  the  cause,  and  they 
have  achieved  much.  Yet,  owing  largely  to 
the  absence  of  any  central  power,  and  also  to 
the  Spoils  system,  whereby  office-bearers  of  all 
kinds  are  removable  and  removed  on  any  change 
of  government,  there  is  a  most  remarkable 
variation  between  prisons  in  the  same  State, 
some  affording  examples  that  we  might  well 
follow,  and  others  taking  us  back  almost  to  the 
days  of  John  Howard  for  a  parallel.  Thus  of 
Albany  County  Jail  we  read,  "This  jail  has 
been  for  many  years  notoriously  in  a  bad  con- 
dition. Some  time  ago  twenty-six  U.S. 
prisoners  were  removed  on  account  of  the 
insufficient  food  and  insanitary  condition  which 
prevailed."  Of  the  next  it  is  said,  "  It  is  in  a 
very  bad  condition,  which  is  acknowledged  by 
every  one  residing  in  the  county."  Here,  and 
in  nearly  every  other  report,  we  read  that  there 
is  no  labour  for  the  prisoners.  Even  in  the 
case  of  large  county  prisons  like  that  of  King's 
County,  with  a  daily  average  of  634  prisoners, 
we  find  "no  labour"  recorded.  The  report  as 
to  Duchess  County  states,  "  Jail  at  Pough- 
keepsie.  This  is  one  of  the  oldest  and  worst 
jails  in  the  State.  It  is  not  fit  to  put  a  human 
being  in — in  fact,  not  fit  for  a  dog  or  a  horse  ; 
it  is  so  dark  in  broad  daylight  that  a  light  must 


230  PRISONS  AND    PRISONERS 

be  had  to  see  anything  in  a  cell,  although  the 
door  is  opposite  a  window.  It  is  not  clean,  but 
fairly  well  ventilated."  Here,  it  is  remarked, 
"  a  man  was  sentenced  to  thirty  days,  but, 
strange  to  say,  was  on  the  street  twenty  days 
before  his  time  expired,  and  made  application  for 
admission  to  the  almshouse.  .  .  .  Sheriff  Pearce 
has  been  interviewed  as  to  how  a  man  can  get 
out  of  jail  before  his  time  is  out,  and  says  he 
doesn't  know.  He  thinks  the  man  must  have 
given  a  fictitious  name,  or  got  out  on  somebody 
else's  name."  Fancy  such  words  being  written 
about  Holloway  and  Colonel  Milman  !  Escapes 
are  frequently  recorded.  In  some  prisons  there 
are  no  relisfious  services  held.  In  not  a  few 
"no  separation  of  young  and  old  offenders"  is 
recorded,  which  is  all  the  more  serious  as  the 
enforced  idleness  from  the  non-provision  of 
labour  must  lead  to  most  corruptive  association 
and  conversation.  The  variation  in  dietaries 
must  be  striking,  inasmuch  as  the  amount  paid 
weekly  by  a  county  for  the  board  of  prisoners 
varies  from  four  dollars  twenty  cents  to  one 
dollar  fifty  cents,  which  would  indicate  that 
some  must  be  fattening  coops,  and  in  others 
attenuatino-  circumstances  exist.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising  that  the  Sheriff  of  Washington  County 
"  is  suing  the  county  for  the  board  of  prisoners. 


AMERICAN    PRISONS  231 

The  board  of  supervisors  only  allowed  him 
I  "50  per  week,  and  he  wants  more."  Naturally 
And  when  we  read  of  Wayne  County  Jail,  "the 
sheriff  here  receives  a  salary,  and  is  not  depen- 
dent upon  the  board  of  prisoners  for  his  living," 
we  are  taken  back  to  the  indefensible  abuse 
which  was  one  of  the  first  to  be  denounced  and 
removed  by  John  Howard,  who  found  in  some 
places  that  "  the  allowance  being  so  far  short  of 
the  cravings  of  nature,  and  in  some  prisons 
lessened  by  farming  to  the  gaoler"  (the  preva- 
lent New  York  County  system),  "many  criminals 
are  half  starved  :  such  of  them  as  at  their  com- 
mitment were  in  health  come  out  almost 
famished,  scarce  able  to  move,  and  for  weeks 
incapable  of  any  labour."  But  this- was  written 
in  1777,  and  even  then  evil  conditions  had  been 
alleviated  by  an  Act  passed  in  1774  for  abolish- 
ing gaolers' fees,  which  was  repeated  in  18 13. 
The  American  system  of  farming  out  the  labour 
of  prisoners  may  be  defensible,  but  never  that 
of  farming  out  their  food.  Monroe  County 
has  "a  good  jail,  but  very  badly  kept.  It  is 
very  difficult  to  keep  it  clean  on  account  of  the 
overcrowding."  This,  by  the  bye,  is  solely  for 
unconvicted  prisoners  on  remand  or  awaiting 
trial.  Orange  County  is  progressive  to  the 
amazing  extent    of  having  introduced  labour, 


232  PRISONS  AND   PRISONERS 

and  thereby  has  reduced   the  monthly  avera^^e 
of  prisoners  from  between  fifty  and  sixty  to  from 
sixteen    to    twenty.     Of  this   prison  also   it   is 
remarked,    "All   the  men  were  clothed  in  the 
striped  denim — the  only  instance,  I  believe,  of 
jail  prisoners  in  this  State  having-  a  special  and 
distinctive  clothing."    In  Putnam  County  "this 
jail  was   filled  with  tramps,   and  was  so  over- 
crowded that  you  could  not  move  without  touch- 
ing   somebody    else.    .   .    .    There    is    no    ade- 
quate separation  for  young  and  old  offenders, 
or  even  of  the  sexes."     Shades  of  Howard  and 
Elizabeth  Fry !     Queen's  County  Jail  held  200 
prisoners,  but  "there  are  no  bathing  facilities, 
and  the  men  show  it  in  their  dirty  and  filthy 
appearance."       In     Rockland    County    "there 
were    108  prisoners — three  to  a  cell,  and  men 
sleeping  in  the  corridors  also."     Well  may  the 
visitor  remark,    "criminally  overcrowded."      In 
Suffolk    County    the    representations    of    the 
visitors  of  the  New  York   Prison   Association 
have  at  last  had  some  effect,  and  closets  have 
actually  been  provided.      "  There  are,  however, 
but  three  of  them.      Forty  men  are  obliged  to 
use  one  in  the  morning,   as  soon  as   it  can   be 
opened,  and  it  is  impossible  to  keep  it  properly 
flushed    and    clean.       There    are    no    hospital 
accommodations  :    last    winter    diphtheria    was 


AMERICAN    PRISONS  233 

brought  into  the  prison,  and  spread  among-  the 
prisoners."  No  wonder !  Of  White  Plains 
Prison,  in  Westchester  County,  Judge  Hellogg 
delivered  his  soul  in  the  desire  of  reform.  "  All 
the  prisoners,  except  those  held  for  the  most 
serious  crimes,  are  turned  out  in  the  corridors 
together.  They  have  no  work  to  do.  They 
play  cards  or  loaf  around,  and  tell  of  their 
exploits,  and  how  they  have  committed  bur- 
trlaries  and  other  crimes  in  their  various 
careers."  Year  after  year,  for  more  than  half 
a  century,  the  excellent  Prison  Association  has 
reported  as  to  abuses,  as  well  as  shepherded 
the  discharged  prisoner,  and  yet  this  state  of 
affairs,  inconceivable  to  English  minds,  exists, 
and  presumably  is  defended  or  thought  inevi- 
table. It  is  local  o"overnment  allowed  to  become 
local  iniquity  that  sustains  such  an  absence  of 
system,  and  ignores  or  tolerates  conditions  that 
seemincompatible  with  enlightenment,  humanity, 
or  even  the  self-protection  of  the  State. 


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